


Hidden Enemy

by recreational



Series: Of Your Kind [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Romance, Slash, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-03-18 21:17:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3584370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recreational/pseuds/recreational
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim was convinced that a five-year mission with his best friends would rid him of the memories that persisted like a splinter in his flesh. Yet one glance at the final addition to his crew effectively drove a wedge between him and his peace of mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this is the second part of a series, and because of the nature of this story (different point of view from the first part), flashbacks will not provide you with the entire background. To give you a better idea of what’s happening, I’d suggest you read at least chapter 10 of Red Sun, just to make sure the characters’ reactions don’t confuse you :) Thank you!  
> 

The doorbell rang and automatically, Jim put the coffee mug on the table. Who would come by at eight fifty in the morning? No one who knew him very well, that was for sure.

He glanced in the mirror and brushed a hand through his ruffled hair. That should do, he thought to himself. The T-shirt and the pajama pants were all right as well – whoever was out there should have known better than visit him so early. Sullenly, Jim went to the door to open it.

“Jim, you’re up!”

The voice was by far too loud, but Bones’ cheery grin compensated for the attack on Jim’s weary state of mind.

“Thought I’d have to personally drag you out of bed,” Bones continued and stepped inside the room, looking around curiously.

“Morning,” Jim grumbled, but then pulled himself together. “Good to see you. Anything wrong? With tomorrow, I mean.”

“Nah, everything’s going according to plan. _You_ know that better than _I_ do.” Bones picked up a carton containing what Jim feared were the remains of his dinner –from two days ago.

“Good thing I don’t have to diagnose your apartment,” Bones said with a frown. “A lost cause in its final hours.”

Jim laughed out loud. No one managed a look of complete and utter disapproval the way Bones did.

“Well, tomorrow the boxes will go into storage,” he said. “And the rest of the stuff? What do I care?”

“Yeah, I can see that.” After putting the carton back on the shelf, Bones started hunting for something in his jacket. “But I’m not here to lament the state of your household. I bear gifts – one to be precise.”

Jim tried to identify the device Bones extracted from his inner pocket. A hypospray, it seemed.

“Now all you have to do is accept it. So hold still.”

Obediently, Jim inclined his head and he felt cold metal on his throat for just a second, before the hot burst of pressurized chemicals pinched his skin. The tickling sensation of the drug flared up briefly and then dissipated.

“Couldn’t that have waited until tomorrow?” Jim rubbed his throat.

“Yeah, I suppose so. Although I thought that it might be a bit less embarrassing if I administered that particular shot in private.” A frown appeared on Bones’ face. “You see, Jim, just because we’re able to cure all of the known shit you can catch out there doesn’t mean that you have to go and expose yourself to as much of it as possible,” he growled.

 _Fuck,_ Jim thought. Someone had talked. Most likely a bird with a distinctive Scottish accent.

“Come on, we’ll be stuck on the Enterprise for ages. It’s like being shut away in a monastery,” Jim complained and busied himself with the half-eaten apple and the empty mug on his nightstand, hoping that Bones would return to the more mundane topic of the messy room.

“I’m not judging you, really, I’m not,” Bones clarified. “But it’s never been that…excessive.”

 _Great, he doesn’t let go_. Jim gave the doctor a quick smile and disappeared into the kitchen. _All right,_ he thought to himself _, there’s nothing awkward about this, I’m an adult_. He drew in a strained breath and opened the bin to throw away the apple.

“You could’ve found yourself someone steady,” Bones’ voice sounded from the living room. “I mean, instead of screwing half of the city. And if you’d asked nicely, I’m sure she would’ve joined the crew as well.”

Jim winced. _Carol_.

The first time he’d met up with her after his return to Earth, he’d still thought that one day, he wouldn’t look at her and simultaneously relive the moment he had stuffed her father into a maintenance tube. And not forgetting he’d been helped by the man who’d killed Marcus with his bare hands. _Those hands..._

Jim squeezed his eyes shut. He would _not_ think about _him_ , not now, not with Bones around, and the solution to all of his problems waiting for him in less than twenty-four hours. He tore his eyes away from the sink and turned around to return to the living room.

“Nah, you know me. Steady’s not my thing,” he said when he crossed the threshold.

Something along those lines was what he had told Carol on their second date, as well. It seemed the best way out, especially after he had caught himself thinking how much her father had deserved what he’d got.

“You’re nothing but a pickup-artist. I guess she would’ve realized that sooner or later,” Bones said.

With some effort, Jim managed a grin, and fortunately Bones seemed to fall for it.

“From what I’ve heard, she works in some research facility now,” Jim remarked as casually as he could.

“Good for her,” Bones said. “It’s impossible to satisfy your appetite for green or blue-skinned anyway, let alone fur...

“Or scales,” Jim finished.

“Damn it, man!” Bones exclaimed. “You haven’t, have you?”

Jim shrugged. “The scales didn’t extend to the important parts.”

Briefly caught in a curious expression looking like a mixture of despair and admiration, Bones seemed to have problems reining in his thoughts.

“You’d better buy me an extra drink for saddling me with that image,” he said after a while, but then pointed a warning finger at Jim. “No matter what your wandering dick was up to in the previous months, tonight it’s going to behave, is that clear? Because we’re going to have a last decent beer before the food synthesizers insult our taste buds with that horrible brew again. Scotty and Sulu will be there, and Uhura even promised to drag Spock along. So what do you say? You coming?”

“Of course I’m coming,” Jim replied. “Usual place?”

“Sure, around nineteen hundred hours.” Bones slapped him on the shoulder and then made for the door. “And remember, it’s about the group and not about picking up a quick lay. If you forget that, I’ll give you a hormone suppressant right in front of everyone, understood?”

“The last decent beer for an eternity – briefing’s hit home,” Jim replied.

He watched Bones open the door and walk out of the apartment.

 _An eternity isn’t enough,_ Jim thought. But during their journey, each day would increase the distance from Earth, and hopefully the lingering memories of sand and skin would lose their power over him.

Jim trailed over his throat with his fingers, feeling for the spot where Bones had expressed his concern in the form of a vaccination. If Bones was worried, Scotty was as well, and Jim’s prayers that Scotty would keep quiet about the previous months had been in vain.

Booze, being each other’s wingman, and having a good time – this was all it had been about, and Scotty was the perfect candidate. Or he had seemed to be, because now he had obviously talked with Bones of all people! Scotty would never address a personal problem directly, but Bones didn’t veer from a trail once he’d picked up on it. No, he would follow it curiously and ask all kinds of wrong questions.

Jim walked to the window and looked down on the sea of buildings, ignoring his own reflection in the glass.

Questions were dangerous. They could lead to cracks in the version of reality the world was supposed to see. Written down for the jury, the carefully constructed story contained snippets of what had happened on that heap of stone and sand, but they were fused to a construction of truth that wouldn’t give anyone cause to question his loyalties or his ability to command. It was a factual tale of rational decisions and survival, and apart from the memories in his head, it would stay just like that.

Everything diverging from those words would cease to exist one day. It would eventually fade, and maybe then looking Spock in the eye would feel completely natural again. No guilt, no shame…

“Fuck!” Jim shouted. He pounded his fist against the glass. _Forget_. No matter what – or how many – it took, he would replace the memories of smooth skin and hard muscle with those of rippling scales and all the hues of the universe if he had to.

“All right, Bones, the apartment is a dump, you say?” Jim muttered to himself and turned around. “I’m going to show you leadership skills.”

Purposefully, he collected all the rubbish to throw away, and then packed the rest of his belongings for the journey. Clearing out his cabinets took him until the early afternoon, but there was still some space left in the boxes that would be hauled off to storage. No matter how much he racked his brain, though, he couldn’t think of anything else he wanted to keep. Most of the things in the apartment had already been there when he moved in.

 _Basically, all I need fits into a bag,_ Jim mused. _Maybe that’s not the worst trait of someone who wants to explore space._ He looked at the clock and decided to go outside for a run; during the following years, all he’d see would be corridors. Then maybe showering and eating?

“Yes,” he cheered himself on and with renewed vigor, he tackled his plans for the rest of the afternoon. When it was time to leave at last, he caught himself fiddling nervously with his sleeve. They would all be there. Those closest to him. His friends, and most of all Spock, who was his old self again, brand new, thanks to months of recovering. Together with the others, they’d embark on a mission, just like in the old days.

Jim smiled and climbed into a taxi. Even if things had changed, he had a home – and that home was definitely not his apartment, he thought as the skyline whizzed by. Anxious to get to the bar, he jumped out of the vehicle before it could stop properly.

 _They are my home_ , flitted through his head. He needed to see his friends’ expectant faces and their smiles.

“The Captain’s on board,” Jim heard someone shout the moment he entered the bar, and a raised glass showed him the way. Scotty waved his beer, beckoning him toward the booth everyone had already assembled in.

“Ready to embark on a mission to liquid wonderland,” Jim said, and he signaled the waitress to bring him the same as Scotty had. “And by that, I don’t mean a visit to Grassia 4. The merpeople there freaked me out a little.”

He squeezed next to Uhura who, in turn, ended up half on Spock’s lap when she wanted to make sure they’d all fit into the booth. The beer arrived and everyone raised their glasses.

“To new shores,” Bones said. “And a happy return.”

He was answered by a chorus of cheers, and Jim downed half of his glass before he addressed to Spock.

“So the last checkup was all right?” he asked. “I mean, if you need more time to regain your strength, we could change shifts at the beginning and reduce your workload.”

“Thank you for your concern, Captain,” Spock said evenly, “but as I already told you, I would prefer you stopped treating me like an invalid.”

“Yeah, right, sorry.” Jim tried for an apologetic face, hoping that Spock would understand.

“The state of my physical health is as it was before the incident, and I will fulfill my duties without error,” Spock added.

“No doubt about it, really,” Jim hastened to assure him, and finally the hint of knitted eyebrows disappeared. “So Scotty, how’s our girl?”

“Fit as a fiddle.” Scotty beamed. “Since the last time you were at Spacedock, they sent up another shipload of engineers to make sure the earlier departure date could be met. I mean, honestly, what were those bloody idiots at Starfleet thinking, all of a sudden demanding we be ready two weeks earlier?”

“No idea,” Jim said. “But I would’ve left a month ago, if it’d been possible.”

“Ah, there’s the old Jim.” Bones smiled. “I can’t wait to get outta here either, despite the fact it’s…space we’re going to. The only disadvantage of the journey is the uniforms, if you ask me.”

“They’re ideally suited to provide maximum comfort in the ship’s environment and on away missions,” Spock felt inclined to explain, but Bones shook his head.

“It feels like you’re running around in pajamas all the time.”

“Pajamas? You think I’d sleep in something like this?” Uhura asked. There followed an uncomfortable silence where all eyes drifted to Spock, though everyone was too polite to respond.

Scotty snorted and with that, changed the tone of the conversation. “A nice breeze down there wouldn’t hurt.”

“Remind me to suggest kilts as an addition to our uniforms,” Jim interjected. “But seriously, we could introduce something like a ‘Casual Day’.”

Spock cleared his throat. “I would like to voice an objection, Captain,” he said. “In the case of an encounter with a new species, that could prove problematic, as it is helpful if the crew can be identified as a group.” Jim rolled his eyes. “And exceptions to the dress code might reduce concentration as the crew does not consist solely of humans, and there is bound to be differing concepts of recreational wear,” Spock finished.

“Sure, as if the miniskirts aren’t a distraction already,” Uhura remarked dryly, and with a frown, Spock fell silent.

“Well! The commander’s really met his match in you, lassie!” Scotty exclaimed. As a peace offering, Uhura leaned her head on Spock’s shoulder.

“That’s more like it,” Kirk said. “Five years, remember guys? Leave the quarreling to, let’s say, the last week of the journey.” He took another sip. “So, tell me. What have you all been up to ‘til now?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, what did you do?” Bones asked Uhura. “Apart from nursing the commander back to full health, that is.”

“Brush up on my Klingon mostly,” she answered. “And I studied two new primitive languages that were recently added to the database.”

“Show us!” Jim demanded.

Uhura started to mutter unfamiliar-sounding words which were occasionally interrupted by clicking sounds. Scotty spluttered into his beer.

“What did you do? Call back a dog?” he asked.

A pronounced grunt, combined with some high angry noises finished Uhura’s performance. A translation wasn’t necessary, as her look conveyed the content. Scotty ducked behind his beer.

“Thanks for the lesson. Well... done,” he complimented her and got a reassuring pat on his shoulder from Sulu.

“Well done,” he said to Scotty. “Being on good terms with the only person who can mediate between you and a furious Klingon might be a good idea.”

Scotty huffed out a nervous laugh while Uhura glowered at him mockingly.

“Next round’s on me?” he asked and finished his beer.

Jim nudged Uhura in the side. “Go on and rile him up some more. That’ll make it a cheap night for the rest of us.”

Jim relaxed into his seat and listened to Bones and Sulu discuss hovercars. Occasionally, he glimpsed Spock’s profile, wondering if the Vulcan was genuinely amused or completely bored. As always, Jim couldn’t tell, so everything was normal again. Finally!

After a couple of more beers, Bones urged them to leave, and grumpily dismissed any protest by citing his doctor’s authority. Strangely, this genuinely improved Jim’s mood. It put a swing in his step and continued into his dreams, so that the next morning when his alarm went off, Jim felt thoroughly rested.

 _Hangover?_ _No, thank God._

Energetically, Jim prepared to leave, mentally saying goodbye to a large shower stall and real coffee. But what were they in contrast to the new mission that would change everything else for the better?

 _It really will,_ he assured himself, and the moment he entered the shuttlecraft heading for Spacedock, he had the final proof. Although there were multiple faces he’d never encountered before, everyone recognized him. He saw smiles, eyes wide in awe, and heard nervous whispers repeating one word over and over again: _captain_.

A tingling feeling in his stomach accompanied him until the shuttle docked and even persisted as he marched in step with the throng of officers and ensigns.

 _My ship,_ Jim thought to himself. _And no matter what Bones says_ – _I can’t wait to change into my uniform again._

The door to his quarters opened and he briefly scanned his rooms before steering toward the wardrobe where he knew his uniform was waiting for him. Starting to undress, he stopped short when the buzzer on his door sounded.

“Come in,” he called, and peeked around the corner to see who had entered.

“Next time I’ll knock,” Bones said and glowered at the door frame. “Was that a bell or an alarm?”

Jim laughed. “I’ve got five years to adjust it. Wait a moment, will you? After I’ve changed, we can go to the bridge together.”

He turned around and hurriedly stepped out of his clothes.

“Don’t rush,” Bones said. “We have to wait, anyway. I just ran into Chekov and he told me that he had to make some last minute arrangements because of an addition to the crew.”

“What?” Jim stepped into his shoes and returned to the main room. “Who?”

Bones shrugged. “Apparently, the information’s classified. Chekov had to arrange for heightened security, though.”

“Are you kidding me? Which room is it?” Jim asked.

“Six-fourteen.”

 _Starfleet Command,_ Jim cursed inwardly. _Those fuckers!_

“So Chekov gets the memo, but I don’t?” he asked. “I’ll show Starfleet who’s the captain. Come on, let’s have a look at our ‘guest of honor’.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll probably just be some jumped-up science type,” Bones assured him while they hastened down the corridor toward the lift. But with each step Jim felt his anger increase.

“Deck six,” he growled.

“Now relax, Jim, there’s nothing–” 

“I didn’t sign on to this mission to have Starfleet Command get on my case again,” Jim seethed. They strode around a corner, and not far down the corridor, a group of security officers came into sight. Dutifully, they snapped to attention and cleared the way for Jim.

“Welcome on board the Enterprise,” Jim called out before he had crossed the threshold, but the rest of his greeting died on his lips. Shocked, he looked at the back which was turned to him. Those shoulders… The hairline above the collar…

“Khan,” he said tonelessly, and the figure in the middle of the room drew a deep breath.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Everything became a blur. Jim’s perception of the world narrowed down to the dark fabric of the shirt in front of him.

 _It’s impossible. It has to be!_ shot through his head, yet when the man slowly turned around, Jim gave up his delusion.

Staring at some nondescript spot on the floor, Khan refused to make eye contact, and it briefly flashed through Jim’s mind that this wasn’t Khan after all. The face was the same, but despite the familiarity, something was missing. Or something was new – Jim couldn’t tell.

He studied the empty look and caught himself trying to find traces of the expressions he had seen on the planet, yet only when Khan finally raised his head, did Jim encounter something familiar. Not from the planet though, but from their time on the Vengeance, and Khan’s eyes pierced through him with so much loathing, that Jim took an imperceptible defensive stance.

“Captain,” Khan said through clenched teeth, waking Jim from his trance. Behind him, he heard Bones huff and blow like an over-revving engine, and Jim was sure the doctor would explode any second. Just this once, Jim wished he could react the same way – snapping, instead of just standing there motionless.

“What’s he doing here?” Bones hissed, but then another voice chimed in.

“Sir?”

After tearing his eyes away from Khan, Jim acknowledged the security officer to his right, and grabbed the PADD he was holding out of his hands.

“Thank you.”

He concentrated on keeping his own hands from shaking, and quickly skimmed the information.

“He’ll... Khan will install new sensors on the _Enterprise_ ,” Jim said, his voice too quiet, but at least it sounded steady. “One of the shuttles will be outfitted with them as well, and the material needed has been brought on board.”

“Why the hell didn’t they do that in the dock?” Bones asked.

“Dunno,” Jim muttered. “But the shuttle’s shields are also supposed to be adjusted. It says here that the chief engineer will supervise the process – and that’s it.”

“They must be–”

Jim cleared his throat to prevent Bones’ barrage of expletives that would surely follow, and fortunately, the doctor kept his temper in check. Similarly, Jim conquered his urge to smash the PADD or leave immediately, and instead looked up to meet Khan’s direct gaze.

“You will answer to Mr. Scott and I expect total cooperation,” Jim said, his body as tense as the atmosphere.

Eyes narrowed to slits, Khan obviously had to fight for his composure as well, and Jim tried to assess what move he was so violently suppressing. Pounce and kill? Run?

“There is no need to demand that. You know it’s my only option,” Khan barked and Jim frowned at the blatant hostility in the voice.

 _Insubordination already?_ Jim asked himself. _Do I have to sanction it to maintain my authority?_

At a loss how to react, Jim bought a little time by giving the officer the PADD. Braving the man’s and everyone else’s stares, he straightened and cleared his throat again.

“Then you know your orders,” he ground out and wordlessly, Khan turned around. With some effort, Jim made himself mimic the action, and he headed back to the turbolift, Bones close behind him.

_God, this can’t be real, can it? This has to be–_

“Dammit, Jim, after everything he did?” Bones shouted and Jim gave a start. “They put him on the _Enterprise_ after he almost destroyed it?”

“Don’t ask me!” Jim hastened to step into the cage. “I wasn’t the one who ordered him here!”

“No, sorry, of course not,” Bones admitted. “But Jim, think of Spock!”

 _“Specify your destination,”_ the computer demanded.

“I know what he did to Spock! I was there the whole time while he recovered!” Jim hissed. “I saw the skin peel off and heard him groan for days when his organs were close to giving in. You sedated me once because I hadn’t slept for ages, remember? I watched each painful minute and sometimes thought it hurt me just as much as him!”

 _And that I slept with the man who caused it all also didn’t help,_ Jim added inwardly.

Bones attempted to pace in the confined space of the lift, but failed.

“So Khan attacks the _Enterprise_ , hits the warp core, and the whole thing would have exploded if it hadn’t been for Spock’s sacrifice,” he accused the wall. “And the way Starfleet honors one of its heroes is by making him serve on the same ship as the man who almost killed him?”

Jim clenched his teeth.

“I’ll take care of this, I promise,” he said with as much composure as he could, but Bones obviously didn’t want to be appeased.

“And you? You survived being stranded with him on some isolated planet, and now they’re sending you into outer space with him?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t have any explanation, damn it!” Jim cursed before inhaling deeply. “Look, he saved my life on that planet, you know that, and without one of the other Augments’ blood, Spock couldn’t have survived. His Vulcan side wouldn’t have had enough time to recover.” He paused and shrugged. “I’m just saying, okay? So maybe this is a kind of... probation, or something.”

Bones looked at him as if he’d completely lost his mind, and Jim admitted to himself that in the old days, he would never have said anything remotely like he just had.

“Well, you of all people should see the advantages,” Jim said, desperately fishing for arguments. “He... he surely won’t refuse to take part in more tests. So he’s your human guinea pig, what about that?”

Bones raised a dubious eyebrow.

“And it can’t hurt to have him around when one of the crew has an accident,” Jim said, and winced. Right now, he didn’t need those particular memories. “Deck five,” he added quickly, and registered with some satisfaction that Bones had swallowed the bait. The lift’s door closed.

“Mmh, well, examining a fresh sample of blood could be interesting,” he said the moment they arrived, and Jim was able to escape the lift without delving too far into the subject.

“Yeah, meet you on the bridge,” he said, and avoided looking back. Determined to shut out anyone he met on the corridor, Jim just concentrated on the floor, and counted his steps until he reached his quarters.

“Open,” he whispered, but the computer registered his voice regardless. He quickly entered and heard the door slide close behind him.

 _Breathe! Calm down!_ he commanded himself. _Calm down already!_

“Fuck!”

In the absence of anything else to throw, he grabbed his bag and flung it across the room. It crashed into the wall and landed on the floor with a less-than-impressive thud, but Jim only noticed all of this peripherally. Every muscle tensing, he forced some air into his lungs to support his racing heart.

“What the... fuck?” he yelled again and punched his fist into the wall’s panels. “Shit!”

Wincing, he rubbed his knuckles. This was all just an unlucky coincidence, there was no other explanation. So, a combination of man and monster had been assigned to his ship? Who cared?

“It’s my fucking ship!” he cursed. With some effort, he unclenched the fist that had refused to relax, even as the pain was pulsing through it. “This is my ship,” he repeated.

Who gave a damn what Starfleet wanted? They weren’t thinking straight lately anyway, and there would surely be a way to fix this mess without their help.

Clinging to this hope, Jim left his quarters. The short trip in the lift was enough to return the façade he had successfully kept up during the past months.

 _It’s supposed to be over,_ he ranted inwardly. _This is home, the place where I can finally be myself again. Such a–_

The door opened.

“Keptin on ze bridge,” Chekov exclaimed excitedly before Jim had actually left the turbolift. Giving himself a mental kick for the reluctance to react the way all the expectant eyes directed at him were demanding it, Jim took the final step into the large room.

“Ah, Chekov, so good to see you.” He marched down to the navigator’s console and gave the young Russian a playful slap on the back. “When we get back you’ll be old enough to join us for the farewell drink.”

Chekov beamed a proud smile, but immediately concentrated on the display in front of him again.

“Course set, Spock?” Jim asked and plunked into his seat.

“Yes, Captain.”

Jim checked the status of the stations. Everything was ready, loaded and closed. So this was it. The beginning. They had to leave the dock now.

Jim breathed in and squirmed in his seat. The comfortable padding just didn’t feel the same as before. It was if the metaphorical weight that had been pressing him down since his return from the planet had turned into stone, and, at a loss of what to do, Jim looked up. The big window showed just a relatively small glimpse of the stars, but Jim kept his eyes glued to them. This was where he had always wanted to go, so nothing and no one was going to stand in his way.

“Then take us out, Mr. Sulu.”

Jim knew that his order lacked a bit of fervor. No one seemed to have noticed though, at least Jim saw the usual degree of wonderment in his crew when the journey started, and the _Enterprise_ slowly maneuvered out of Spacedock.

“Warp three,” Jim said, and at the same time, he searched the bridge for a reason to get up from his seat. Somehow it refused to become more _right._ Slowly, he rose and walked over to the science station.

“Now, what about that planet Starfleet wants us to have a look at while we’re on the way out?” he asked Spock.

“Trasmo V is the size of Neptune and its atmosphere consists of thick mist. That is all we know,” Spock answered without looking up. “As the Trasol system is of no significance and lies far off the usual shipping routes, the planet has only once been examined by a Vulcan exploratory mission. A probe was sent into the atmosphere but it was lost before it could transmit any data.”

“So is it a gas giant? A rocky planet?” Jim asked.

Spock turned his head. “Unclear, Captain. The sensors could not penetrate the particles in the atmosphere. They are highly energetic, yet it was impossible to determine why, and they produce an enormous amount of magnetic interference.”

“Ahh, a mystery!” Jim rejoiced. “And that’s why the shuttle’s modified, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

A dark look on his face, Spock stood up.

“What do you think about it?” Jim asked carefully. “Khan being on board, I mean.”

In contrast to his usual way of reacting, Spock now appeared to contemplate his answer for a moment.

“His expertise will be a valuable contribution,” he said at last and Jim shook his head.

“And apart from the diplomatic Vulcan bullshit?”

Spock remained silent for an even longer amount of time before he replied. “There is nothing else to say.”

“But I have something to say,” Jim heard Uhura’s voice from behind. He turned around. “If he ever messes with anyone, he’d better watch his back.”

Her grimly determined face prevented Jim from adding any comment. If he had thought that Spock would be troubled by fact that the cause of his suffering was on board, he hadn’t reckoned on Uhura.

“I don’t want to see him anywhere near the bridge or Spock or, I don’t know, anyone!” she continued. Jim raised his hands apologetically.

“All right, don’t worry,” he said. “Although he’ll be on board for at least a month until we reach Trasmo, I figure that he’s only here to make sure we succeed in exploring it. Maybe afterward we can dump him on some ship, like a cargo vessel belonging to one of the Federation’s allies.”

Uhura scrunched up her nose. “A ship with a mining planet as its final destination sounds good.”

“I’ll go and have a word with Scotty to check what exactly Khan will be doing, okay?” Jim asked and Uhura nodded before she returned to her post.

“Is there anything else you would like to discuss, Captain?” Spock asked.

 _Meet his eye,_ Jim ordered himself, and really managed a quick glance before he aimed for the door.

“No, everything’s fine. You’ve got the bridge, Commander Spock,” Jim rasped and escaped into the turbolift. “Computer, locate Mr. Scott.”

_“Mr. Scott is on deck ten, cargo hold two.”_

“Take me there.”

Twelve seconds maximum – that was the amount of time he would be spared any interaction. Enjoying the feeling of speeding through the _Enterprise_ , Jim leaned against the lift’s wall, letting its subtle vibration pulse against his shoulders.

 _You can manage this,_ he assured himself. Because this was what it should be about: procedures on board. Coordinating people. Deciding what was best.

In the cargo hold, the familiar sight of Scotty greeted him. The chief engineer typed on the information monitor of a large container and murmured something unintelligible.

“Everything on board?” Jim asked.

Scotty looked up, his disgruntled face just lighting up marginally.

“More than I expected.”

“Is this the material for the new sensors and the shuttle?” Jim pointed at the container.

“Yes, in here and in the one to the right. A ton of things are listed in the inventory, and they give me some idea of what they’re supposed to be used for, but hell, I’d need a year to figure it out by myself.” Scotty knitted his brows. “I guess our new crew member is going to do that in no time, augmented bighead that he is.”

“Yeah, you’re his babysitter now, you know.” Jim forced a smile on his face, but from the pinched lips, he could tell that this particular piece of information had reached Scotty as well.

“Bloody idiots, what were they thinking?” Scotty threw up his hands in despair. “‘Oh, let’s make the chief engineer shadow a convict who’s meddling with sensitive technology, what about that?’ I mean, honestly, have they gone bonkers?”

“I don’t know, I just–”

“Well, they made some vague indications that the computer keeps tabs on him all the time, and there’s also something about close surveillance that’s not specified,” Scotty rambled on. “Bloody helpful, all of it. And what am _I_ supposed to do, huh?”

Jim shrugged. “Maybe learn how the sensors work? Well, it’s only for a short time, isn’t it?” Jim asked hopefully. “He won’t be on board for the entire five years, will he?”

Now it was Scotty’s turn to shrug.

“No idea. Maybe you get different information, but from what I’ve got here, there’s no end date mentioned. They don’t say anything about how long he’ll be on board. Nothing. Odd, really.”

Scotty swished over the PADD’s surface in an attempt to find additional files.

“Nope, nothing,” he said. “They just repeat over and over again that he’s no threat.” Scotty grunted out a laugh. “Those pillocks, how can that man be harmless? He’s a mass murderer! ...Though he couldn’t bring _you_ down, could he?” he teased Jim. “So it seems you’re the only candidate in the universe for this mission.”

“I don’t know. It rather feels like I drew the shortest straw,” Jim said without missing a beat.

“Isn’t that the most fun?” Scotty asked with a grin.

 _No, it’s a fucked-up mess,_ Jim thought. “I guess, yeah,” he answered instead. “When you like to–”

“Speak of the devil,” Scotty said suddenly, and Jim spun around. Khan must have just appeared from behind one of the big containers, and there was no telling how much of the previous conversation he had overheard.

 _But I shouldn’t give a shit anyway!_ Jim thought _. He’s an engineer, that’s it!_

“Captain. Mr. Scott,” Khan said, and nodded to each of them. “I’m here to report for duty.”

Bracing himself up, Jim glowered at the intruder only to keep himself in check immediately. Khan was a member of his crew, after all.

“Khan.” Jim nodded his head. “Mr. Scott and I are discussing your responsibilities.”

“Rather _my_ responsibilities,” Scotty mumbled under his breath.

“Yes, Captain, I’m aware of my _function_.”

Stressing the last word in a strange manner, Khan fell silent afterward, giving Jim a chance to study him again. Just like before, he seemed to be ... on edge somehow. He tolerated meeting Jim’s eye, but when Jim still refused to break the silence, the most curious thing happened. Khan blinked nervously and then turned his head away.

Baffled, Jim took in the spectacle in front of him. It wasn’t in Khan’s make up to back down. Never. He evaded, pushed away, killed eventually – but he never retreated.

“Do you have any further questions?” Jim asked.

Briefly, the hatred Jim had seen in Khan’s eyes earlier that day flared up again.

“No, my role is abundantly clear, isn’t it?” he growled. Unlike before, he didn’t turn around to put an end to the conversation, although it seemed that he wanted to. Jim couldn’t really decipher the expression he saw, but something was holding Khan back, slowly stripping him of the strength he had always displayed – even when he’d been imprisoned.

“Yes, I ... think so,” Jim said, swallowing against the lump in his throat. This man who exuded nothing but surrender couldn’t be Khan.

Jim felt his hand twitch, and in an attempt to take his mind off the situation, he faced Scotty again.

“I expect regular status reports, all right?” he said.

“Sure, Captain.” Scotty was on the verge of adding something, but Jim shook his head and left. Hurrying to the door and down the corridor, he only allowed himself to breathe again when he had reached the turbolift. The air didn’t want to funnel into his lungs though.

 _I’m not panicking!_ he thought to himself. _I’m leading a crew on a five-year mission, and I’m not fretting over an ill-advised affair._

It was a thing of the past, a mistake, or most likely some psychological trauma of being kept hostage!

Jim recalled the scientific papers he’d read and they clearly pointed at post-traumatic stress or Stockholm syndrome. All he could do was come to terms with it and bring it to a close. It was over, finished, and absolutely nothing should be able to trigger the kind of overwhelming urge Jim had barely been able to suppress a moment ago – when, for a fraction of a second, all he had wanted to do was reach out and gently cup Khan’s distressed face.

Jim closed his eyes. He could feel the telltale tingling in his gut, but he dismissed it angrily. It belonged to another time.

_And a different place. On our planet we had..._

_G-478 Alpha!_ he automatically corrected himself. _Not_ our _planet._ Just coordinates in a solar system. Nothing more than data that could be filed away, never to be taken notice of again.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Computer? Captain’s Log. Stardate 2260.31.”

 _Hell, two weeks already,_ Jim thought to himself. He leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his Vulcan spice tea, wondering why the food synthesizers managed to copy the taste of alien food and beverages so much better than those of Earth. This couldn’t be pure coincidence, could it?

“It’s the fourteenth day of the journey and, just like all the other days, it was...” _boring_ , “...uneventful. Of course except for the tiny asteroids that happened to cross our path today and which Mr. Spock deemed worthy of taking on board. They had been flying through space on a stable course, yet without a larger gravitational force near them. So the accomplishment of the day is giving the people in the science lab something to do.”

_The lucky bastards._

“Apart from that, we had a minor malfunction of the warp core because of a new calibration protocol Mr. Scott tried out. Now everything is back to normal, and Mr. Scott reports good progress with the new sensors and the shuttlecraft.”

 _Should I mention Khan?_ he wondered. He hadn’t done so in the previous entries.

“End Captain’s Log.”

Another glimpse at the PADD didn’t reveal a possible addition to his meagre recording, so Jim pushed it back on the table and lifted the cup again. He guessed that meeting Scotty more often would be a better alternative to reading the endless technical reports, but the possibility of Khan coming up as a topic in conversation had Jim shy away from making more contact than strictly necessary.

Was Scotty offended? Until then, in the few meetings in the officers’ mess he had been completely at ease, yet this was perhaps a result of all the others being around as well. And the lack of obvious tension didn’t erase the fact that before the journey had started, he had given their friendship a lot more attention.

 _I should call him,_ Jim thought. It wasn’t just for Scotty – also the fact that he knew almost nothing about what Khan was doing unsettled Jim. Apart from the actions Scotty oversaw when they were working, Jim just followed one aspect of Khan’s life on the Enterprise.

“Now let’s see. Have you moved?” Jim muttered and then cleared his throat. “Computer? Millipede.”

 _“Crewman Singh is in his quarters,”_ the disembodied voice blared through the room.

A very practical subroutine. That was, until Spock found it, which he no doubt would, but Jim hoped that given time, it wouldn’t be necessary anymore.

When someone was around, gaining access to this particular information was slightly more complicated, but in the previous days, Jim had entered the code he had installed so many times that he could do it with his eyes closed. The computer’s answer only varied between three possibilities anyway. Khan was either in his quarters, on deck 18 with the sensor subsystems, or in shuttlebay two. Twice the computer had located him in a cargo bay, and Jim supposed that he was retrieving components that had been stored in the containers. Scotty’s presence in that location at the same time was another indication for this theory.

 _God, I’m a stalker,_ Jim reprimanded himself.

In the first week, he had told himself that all of this was purely out of concern for the safety of the crew. But as time wore on, and when typing in the commands or telling the computer the password had become his second nature, Jim admitted that the surveillance was a convenient measure to ensure avoiding Khan.

“And I’m a damn coward,” Jim informed his tea and then tapped his communicator. “Computer, where’s Mr. Scott?”

“Mr. Scott is in main engineering.”

Perfect. Scotty had exceeded his shift by at least an hour now, so dragging him away from work would look completely natural, considerate even. Jim jumped up and marched out of his quarters.

 _The best way to show everyone I’m not a recluse,_ he assured himself. If he carried on as he did now, someone would surely notice. And going by the strange behavior Khan had exhibited when they had last met, a conversation with Scotty could also serve the purpose of finding out about him.

“Captain.”

A young science officer joined him in the turbolift and Jim racked his brain to remember his name. Austin or Houston or…? Some city, that much was certain, but to avoid embarrassing himself, Jim just nodded.

 _Definitely time to socialize more,_ he thought, and when he reached main engineering, his wish was granted instantly. The day’s malfunction had obviously led to the alerting of most of the section’s crew, so that the normally deserted gangways and stations were now almost brimming over with people. Jim followed the loudest profanity to one of the cooling systems.

“Bloody hell, Dost, hand me the laser welder!”

The officer standing next to a pair of legs showing from under a large tube rummaged around in a heap of tools. When she looked up again and became aware of Jim, she froze.

“Blast! How long do you need to find that thing?”

“You’ll get it when you ask nicely,” Jim said. A loud bang preceded some more swearing before Scotty slid into view.

“Captain.”

Jim held out a hand and Scotty heaved himself up.

“To what do I owe the honor of your visit? Missed the buzz of charged air and the light touch of ozone?” he asked, but Jim didn’t bat an eyelid.

“Mr. Scott, how long have you been on duty?” he asked.

“Seven hours?” Scotty tried. Jim shook his head. “A wee bit longer?”

“Much longer,” Jim said sternly. “So I suggest you retire to the crew’s mess, let’s say in ten minutes?”

Immediately Scotty handed the tool he was holding to the young officer.

“You manage that, Dost,” he said and then threw Jim a wide grin. “I’ll go and change. See you in ten minutes.”

Jim watched Scotty jog down the corridor with a bounce in his step.

 _You really_ did _neglect him,_ his guilty conscience lectured Jim. But this would change from now on. Hiding from one of his crew had led to a distance to all of them, and he couldn’t continue like that.

“Stand at ease, Ensign,” Jim said as he found Dost still rooted to the spot. “And good luck with that tube.”

 _At least one name I’ll recall from now on._ On his way through the machinery, Jim breathed in. Scotty was right, he had missed the smell and the noise, and later, on entering the crew mess, the murmur and laughter pervading the room gave him the feeling of security he had missed so much.

“Two Sirtian ales, please,” he told the bartender whose name also escaped him momentarily. Mortified, Jim vowed to study the crew list and learn each and every name until the end of the next day. He grabbed the two glasses and sat down at the nearest table. He had not settled down completely when Scotty plunked down in the seat opposite him.

“Oi, Jim, you don’t plan to start without me, do you?”

Eyeing the dark red liquid, Scotty waited eagerly for Jim to lift the glass.

“To our pimped-out ride. And now drink, it was hotter than hell down there,” Jim said.

Scotty managed to gulp down almost the entire glass in one go and looked much refreshed afterward. Leaning into the back of his chair, Jim didn’t even make an attempt to steer the conversation anywhere else than the topic he had already targeted with his toast to the _Enterprise_. As Scotty loved the ship down to its last plasma conduit, he would surely use the opportunity to continue just there.

Trying not to get too impatient, Jim listened to seemingly endless explanations about why exactly the experiment of the day hadn’t worked out, and how Scotty planned to alter his setup. In the brief pause Jim needed to go to the bar and order more drinks, Scotty had thought of two more approaches to his problem and discussed them in an impressive monologue before he reached a dead end at last.

“I don’t know,” Scotty said and sighed. “Maybe I should ask Mr. Mope.”

“Who?” Jim asked. He couldn’t even recall seeing that name on the roster.

“Sorry, you can’t know, of course.” Scotty grinned. “It’s the name we gave our uninvited guest.”

 _Khan_. “Is he making trouble?” Jim asked.

“Nah, not at all.” Scotty shook his head. “He’s always very focused...  As well as being a stuck-up arse.”

“You get along though, like, he’s doing what you tell him to?” Jim wanted to know.

“Yes, sure, everything’s fine with that,” Scotty replied, and then laughed. “Well, we won’t become best pals, that’s for certain, I mean, there’s nothing we can talk about. Like ‘hey, how was it when you still ruled the world? Fancy giving me a hint how to bring that about? And those people who died in London, ever give them any thought?’ Honestly, I’m a bit out of my league here.”

“Astronomy usually works as a topic. And trading insults was also a frequent basis of our conversations,” Jim supplied, but Scotty just frowned.

“When you met him in the cargo bay, I thought you’d be at each other’s throats any second,” he said.

Jim dismissed the image the remark conjured up.

“He didn’t kill me when he wasn’t supervised by a computer, so I think we’re safe.”

“Though it’s not the case the other way round, if you ask me,” Scotty murmured.

“What was that?” Jim asked.

“Nothing, really, just the reason why we started calling him that silly name. You see, he’s never been the socializing type, but recently, he acts like he’s... I don’t know.” Scotty searched for words. “For instance, once I accidentally brushed up against him and he flinched like I’d stabbed him.”

“Did he become violent?” Jim asked.

“No, he was rather like a skittish horse, the poor bugger.” Scotty stopped. “Have I said that? Bloody hell, I’m spending too much time with him. But he looks pale, you see, I mean even more than usual. And a bit haggard. I don’t know, does he actually need to eat? I’ve never met him around here.” He motioned at the mess.

“I saw him eat a caterpillar for breakfast, so I don’t think he’s too picky,” Jim said and Scotty guffawed.

“Maybe he misses the caterpillars.”

“I damn well don’t.” Jim made a face and Scotty’s laugh turned several heads. Conspiratorially, Jim leaned over the table and waited until Scotty had calmed down.

“But seriously, when something’s wrong with Khan, you should’ve written it in the report,” he said.

Scotty shook his head. “But he does his work, I can’t see a change in that. And that he looks at everyone as if they’re the scum of the universe is normal, I thought. So he avoids us like the plague? Didn’t come as a surprise either, but what do I know? That bloke’s a mile out of each scale for sanity.”

“Maybe Bones should have a word with him,” said Jim.

“Yes, perhaps he should.”

Scotty’s immediate support of the suggestion didn’t let go of Jim, not even in the next half hour when he related some of the insignificant events during his shifts. There really wasn’t a lot to talk about yet and when Scotty couldn’t stifle a yawn, Jim thankfully took the hint and called it a day. His legs carried him out of the mess and toward the turbolift on their own accord, and Jim had nearly asked the computer to locate Bones, when he hesitated.

He shouldn’t run to Bones. If something was wrong it was his own duty to check, and he had to face Khan sooner or later – if only to avoid becoming a pathetic excuse for a captain.

The doors of the lift closed. “Computer? Millipede.”

_“Crewman Singh is in his quarters.”_

“Deck six,” Jim said before he had second thoughts. When the turbolift set into motion, the self-confidence of one moment ago vanished as quickly as he was sent through the ship. The doors opened and Jim had not even begun to devise a way to reestablish contact with Khan, let alone how to broach the subject of why it was necessary to seek him out.

Yet even during the surprise encounter two weeks ago he had managed to keep his hands from shaking, and at least that amount of composure should be possible in a setting like this, Jim encouraged himself on his way. He lightly touched the panel for the doorbell and the ensuing sound carried him back to Bones’ words. Something should be done about this noise, it was awful at best.

Whatever kept Khan from directly answering the door, Jim cursed every second he had to remain in the corridor. He supposed that no one had visited Khan since coming aboard, and perhaps he was just unaccustomed to people wanting to see him when he was off duty.

Jim frowned. _Not unlike myself, only for different reasons…_

His thought was cut short by the door sliding open.

“Captain.”

Jim had to concede that Khan almost succeeded in reining in his bafflement, but it was still abundantly clear that he had not expected anyone –least of all Jim. However, he didn’t seem to be inclined to ask him in and instead resorted to a long stare.

 _That face!_ Jim had nearly taken a step back. What Scotty had said was true. With cheekbones unnaturally pronounced, eyes slightly sunken and twitching nervously, Khan was but a shadow of his former self.

“May I come in?” Jim asked and a forbidding look crossed Khan’s face.

“I can’t refuse, can I?” he sneered in return.

“Well...”

Khan retreated, but left the door open for Jim to enter. Fixing Jim with his gaze, he didn’t stop until he had established a distance between them that he deemed sufficiently safe.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Jim felt inclined to say when Khan’s eyes showed a panicked glint at the sound of the door closing. “I just wanted to check if everything’s okay.”

The facial expressions changed so quickly that Jim could barely keep track. At some point in the previous months Khan had obviously lost the ability to hide his emotions, so what Jim had seen two weeks ago had become a constant until now. But why?

Jim took a few tentative steps forward and Khan fought a visible battle with his need to attack or to flee, and just like the last time, Jim was unable to discern the difference.

“Very considerate of you,” Khan said gruffly.

“If there’s something wrong...” Jim began, but paused when the tension mounting in Khan became an almost palpable display.

“Everything’s fine,” Khan spat, advancing toward Jim. With teeth bared, he wore his rage like an offensive weapon.

“Now look–” Jim raised his hand in what he hoped Khan would accept as an appeasing gesture, but his intention to stand his ground was overridden by the shove Khan gave him. The force sent Jim directly into the wall and with some effort he succeeded in remaining on his feet.

“Everything’s perfect. Or are you searching for a reason?” Khan shouted.

“What?” With his breath just returning into his aching upper body, Jim pressed out the word and tried to get away at the same time. The hands that pushed him back into the wall didn’t allow for such a move though, and Jim had to concede that despite his weakened state, Khan was still impressively strong.

 _Which won’t do him any good now,_ Jim grumbled inwardly. This was the last time he would take any shit Khan decided to dish out as he saw fit.

“This is my ship!” he shouted back. “I’m the captain here, deal with it. For fuck’s sake, I just wanted to make sure you were all right!”

Khan gave a strained laugh, the ugly sound going right through Jim.  

“You once told me to stop acting as if I cared,” Khan ground out. His face came nearer and Jim could feel puffs of breath on his cheek when the voice continued. “I suggest you do the same.”

“As the Captain, I–” Jim began.

“Stop pretending!” Khan interjected.

Jim closed his eyes. All of this was wrong. Khan shouldn’t be so close, shouldn’t pin him to a wall and breathe down his throat. He should be merely a memory – no smell or heat or…

“How is it?” Khan whispered and Jim blinked, bewildered.

“Is what?” he rasped.

“To know that _you_ have the power,” Khan said, his voice carrying the same condescension he had shown each day on the Vengeance.  “To be able to decide about life and death?”

 _That bastard!_ Jim thought, his rage trickling an adrenalin-fueled path through his system.

“That’s not why I wanted to command a starship,” he growled. “And you won’t prevent me from doing my job. Now get _off_ me!”

Channeling his entire strength, Jim pushed Khan’s chest and continued shoving him away when Khan grabbed his shirt to avoid losing his balance.

“But to be on top of the food chain again?” Jim yelled. “You’re right, it feels great.”

They stumbled along, only stopped by Khan running into a table.

“You–” Khan started, trying to escape to the side.

“Weakling, wimp, whatever,” Jim interjected, wrestling him back against the furniture. “Now listen carefully. You will act like a good boy, is that clear? I won’t have you endanger the whole mission and especially not the crew, you got me?”

Khan snorted.

“You’re here on Starfleet’s orders, not mine,” Jim seethed. “I personally don’t give a fuck what happens to you after you do your job, and there are quite a few ways to get rid of you.”

From one second to the next, the defiant look vanished from Khan’s face, replaced by incredulous wide eyes that made Jim reconsider what he’d just said. It had been harsh – too harsh maybe?

 _Abandoning one of my crew members in space? Great move, Captain,_ Jim’s conscience reproached him.

“You wouldn’t …” Khan began.

“Oh yes, I would,” Jim said, flinching inwardly. This was about establishing a chain of command, nothing else. “I’m in charge now, get used to it.”

Emotions flitted over Khan’s face and when he tried to shuffle to the side, Jim pressed him further into the table. He couldn’t give in now or the resulting damage would be even worse than this fight. If his authority were undermined for what could be years, he...

 _Too near!_ his mind screamed suddenly, galvanizing him. In a fraction of a second, Jim’s felt his priorities shift dramatically. He commanded his body to move and noticed fleetingly that it didn’t obey. The overriding need to stay just there, between Khan’s legs, clutching his shirt to keep him close, dictated a completely different course of action.

_More of that! Now!_

Feeling the hands that had been holding on to him loosening their grip, Jim savored their touch when they left their warm outline on his chest. He searched Khan’s gaze, but all he found were eyes that stared vacantly past him.

“You’re in charge,” Khan whispered, more to himself. 

Jim froze.

“Go ahead, then. I will comply,” he heard, but couldn’t comprehend Khan’s comment until he felt one of Khan’s hands worm its way under his shirt.

“I–” Jim started. Acting against all of his instincts, he stepped backward, effectively putting an end to the fingers’ journey. “I didn’t mean...”

Khan’s slightly absent look remained and was now directed to the hand that still hovered in the air. It seemed as if he couldn’t grasp what was happening, and the utter helplessness of the gesture made Jim’s breath hitch. Before he could say anything though, Khan blinked and pushed himself off the table.

“Never mind,” he muttered, and brushed past Jim to leave the room.


	4. Chapter 4

_It’s not going to go away just because you read it another time,_ Jim told himself and switched off the PADD. He wasn’t sure that he had understood all the details of the sensor test Scotty had prepared with the little concentration as he could muster since the day before.

Jim shook his head. Could he become any more pathetic? Succumbing to the same pull that had cost him his will on that planet – and then running into Spock and Uhura on his way to his quarters! Just the thought of what he had done a couple of months ago while Spock had been fighting for his life had sent him spiraling.

 _Get over it!_ Jim admonished himself inwardly. The guilt eating him up wouldn’t help anyone. In half an hour he was needed down at the engines, and by the cautious words Scotty had used to describe the test, it was obvious that even _he_ didn’t comprehend the new configuration. He called it ‘a very creative use of energy and a rather adventurous way to bundle it’ – flowery words that ineffectively hid the fear between the lines.

 _You’re his friend and his captain,_ Jim thought and stood up to head for the wardrobe. _Facing Khan again is a minor matter._

Jim slipped into the simple gray shirt and trousers worn for away missions. Perhaps yesterday’s show of authority had been a bit too much, and looking less official would calm things down. He wasn’t on duty, so he could forego the captain’s uniform. Expectantly, he took in his newly-clad image in the mirror only to give an exasperated sigh.

“Why can’t you be a bit more Vulcan and act _after_ giving it some thought?” he addressed his reflection. “If you want to ruin your friendships and your career, just go on like that.” _And wear the only clothes that remind you of G-478 Alpha_.

 _Remind you_ and _Khan, for that matter._ What a great idea to bring back the memories of when Khan had surrendered himself to Starfleet and effectively given up his freedom. Jim gritted his teeth. Good intentions didn’t lead to anything. Whatever he did, he was making things worse. Going to the trial, staying away… Nothing had seemed right, and from Khan’s behavior, it was clear that the decision to hand in a written testimony had been wrong.

 _Hell, yesterday he looked as if he wanted to kill me on the spot,_ Jim thought to himself. Yet in mere seconds, the atmosphere had changed completely. It had been odd how Khan had let himself be overpowered. And that offer …

Pinching his lips, Jim faced away from the mirror and compelled himself to walk to the door.

 _It’s just fucking clothes!_ he ranted inwardly. _You’re there to support Scotty. Khan’s simply another engineer. Now get a grip!_

On the way to the turbolift, he read the specifications again, failing to glean their purpose once more, and before he had another chance to work his way through them, the doors to the lift opened.

“Computer? Millipede,” Jim said when he was alone in the lift.

_“Crewman Singh is on deck 18.”_

_Where else,_ Jim thought. “Deck 18,” he said.

The lift was too fast for Jim’s liking, and after a short moment, the doors opened, beckoning him to leave. Reluctantly, Jim aimed for the sensor subsystems.

“Over here!”

Scotty had spotted him, waving excitedly to show him the way before he vanished between the tubes and heavy machinery towering to the right and left of him like a metal gorge. The small path led Jim through tubes and wires to an even more confined area where he had to duck to see the rest of Scotty who, in turn, was just about to crawl into a narrow tunnel.

“This doesn’t look like it was made to be accessed,” Jim remarked.

“I’m like a cat, you see. And Khan’s my whiskers,” the Scotsman replied from inside the tunnel. Jim squinted and saw another beam of light in the distance. A couple of meters away, someone else was moving. “Are you finished?” Scotty called.

“One moment, I’m … I …” Khan’s breathless voice died down. “Yes, it’s done.”

Immediately, Scotty shuffled backward and Jim did the same until he could stand upright again. The look Scotty threw him before he started hammering commands into his PADD wasn’t very reassuring, just like the twitching of Scotty’s upper lip, and Jim could empathize completely, although the reason for his own nervousness was about to emerge from the dark tunnel. Stepping nearer to Scotty, Jim pretended to be interested in the commands the chief engineer typed.

“Ready?” Scotty asked and raised his head, forcing Jim to do the same. Khan nodded, his whole posture conveying the opposite. He rubbed seemingly sweaty hands on his shirt, but perhaps it was just grease, Jim tried to appease himself.

 _And what if it isn’t?_ shot through his head regardless. Similarly to Scotty, there were beads of sweat on Khan’s forehead, but Khan didn’t sweat, not unless he’d been running full speed through a hot desert! So what the fuck was wrong with him now?

“Well...” Scotty said and tapped on his PADD. “Let’s see what–”

A loud bang cut him off and made everyone flinch. Instantly, the alarms started blaring.

“What was ...?” Jim started.

“We’d better get out of here!” Scotty interjected. Jim scanned the machinery and saw smoke rising up. It didn’t seem overly dramatic, yet one look at Khan’s panic stricken face convinced Jim that something serious was happening.

“All right then, let’s clear out,” Jim said, and was just about to turn around and run when he heard Khan’s voice.

“I’ll fix this.”

“What? We have to leave!” Scotty shouted and as if to reinforce his message, flames shot out of the engine.

“This was supposed to work!” Khan barked, shaking his head. “I need to make it work!”

“Forget about the bloody sensors!” Scotty yelled back and started to run away from the fire, but Khan didn’t acknowledge him. Amidst the onset of the fire extinguishers which added their hissing and sputtering to the alarms, he just purposefully marched in the opposite direction, toward the flames that leaked out of the gap between the machinery.

 _It’s too confined!_ Jim thought and already set in motion before his mind had given him a conscious order. _The extinguishing agent won’t reach it in time!_

“Khan!” he shouted and the next thing he perceived was the fire licking at him with a fierce sting. He didn’t really process the heat, at least not until it bit its way through his uniform – to be replaced with suffocating dust all of a sudden.

“Jim?” he heard. _Scotty!_

“Stay back!” Jim shouted. Fighting his way through the smoke and the chemicals, he didn’t stop until his hands felt another person. He grabbed what appeared to be an upper arm and pulled with all of his might.

“No!” Khan’s choked voice sounded through the dust.

“Get out of here!” Jim coughed. He banged his head on something, but continued to drag the still struggling Khan with him until finally, he felt hands coming to his aid.

“Jim, Jim!” Scotty called. “Are you okay? Shit, Khan!”

The last words made Jim overcome his aversion to opening his eyes. Blinking against the smoke and the dust, he focused on Khan, who still needed to be held back by two ensigns. Although straining weakly against them, he nevertheless looked dazed, and going by the garishly red wounds where his shirt was scorched, his regenerative capabilities were going full tilt at the moment. The throat looked the worst, with singed flesh up to his ear and jaw.

 _God, that has to hurt like hell!_ Jim thought. “Do you want me to call an emergency team?” he asked and the words made Khan snap out of whatever trance he’d been in.

“I can repair it alone,” he answered, and Jim needed a moment to process what he meant.

“You are not going back in there, do you hear me?” he said, but Khan wrenched one arm free and turned around. Instantly, Jim grabbed his wrist, the only part of the arm which seemed to be unblemished. “You either see Dr. McCoy voluntarily, or I’ll have you carried away from here on a stretcher, got that?”

Khan froze. “I need to do my _duty_!” he spat, but couldn’t hide the trace of desperation in his voice. “I have to make this work!”

“But you’re injured!” Jim shouted. He was aware of the uncomfortable stares the scene was attracting. Yet the prospect of dragging Khan to sickbay against his will wasn’t a promising solution.

“All of this will heal in no time,” Khan said defiantly.

“But I can’t let you go back to work in this state, you know that,” Jim said and Khan turned around at last.

“Regulations, I see. Then I will comply,” he pressed out before he glowered at Jim and the ensign – _Dost_ , Jim remembered – until they let him go. Without acknowledging anyone on his way, Khan walked toward the turbolift, his posture more than a little tense.

 _He’s definitely in pain,_ Jim thought, and debated if he should make Dost accompany him to sickbay. _Perhaps I should go myself, I could –_

“Why did he run back in?” Scotty asked, directing Jim’s attention away from his inner monologue. “This is just a sensor test.”

“I wish I knew,” Jim admitted and shook his head. “He takes this very seriously.”

“He bloody well does,” Scotty snorted. “Did you see the throat? He must have touched an open conduit. Third degree plasma burns.”

“Yes, I saw it,” Jim stated, suppressing any inflection in his voice.

“No need for _you_ to risk _your_ life,” Scotty muttered. “The lucky bastard will be all right soon enough.”

“I can’t let a crewmember rush to his death, can I?” Jim retorted, but Scotty had started tapping on his PADD again without paying Jim’s accusing tone any heed.

“No idea what caused the problem,” he said to himself. “Dost, did you monitor the readings during the malfunction?” Before the ensign could answer, Scotty was already wandering off to a control panel, engineers from all over the large hall flocking to him.

Slightly exasperated, Jim looked down on himself. There was the odd hole in his shirt and trousers, and he could go and change, as there was obviously nothing else for him to do around here. He marched to the turbolift and suppressed his urge to direct it towards sickbay.

“Captain’s quarters,” he blurted out. _Millipede_ , he added without saying it out loud and could have kicked himself. _And I won’t demand his medical files, damn it! I’ll wait for the final examination Bones sends me. That’s it._

Without paying more attention to the slightly jittery feeling that persisted despite his self-affirmation, he went to his quarters and changed. No matter what he did afterward though, time passed with excruciating slowness. Reading proved to be impossible because he simply couldn’t concentrate. Going for a jog through the corridors cleared his mind for a while, but only as long as he was running his heart out. Perhaps on the bridge there might be something interesting going on, and lured by this vague hope, Jim showered and dressed in his uniform.

By the way Spock greeted him, Jim assessed that the chance for anything to distract him was virtually zero. His presence earned him a raised eyebrow combined with a muttered “Captain” before Spock returned to his station.

“Captain, is there a problem?” Uhura asked.

“Er, no, I’m just…”

“…bored out of your mind?” she finished.

Jim inhaled. “Yeah, something along those lines,” he said. “At least we had a malfunction today.”

“The energy fluctuation was substantial,” Spock remarked without looking up. “It is contained now.”

“Substantial, yes,” Jim repeated. He ambled along the stations until he gave up his search for a task. Spock had the bridge and there was nothing to do. Nothing to worry about on his ship save for one person.

 _Stop it!_ Jim commanded himself. Khan had surely healed by now, no matter how nasty the wounds had looked. Absentmindedly, Jim ran a finger along the backseat of his chair. 

“Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, enjoying your free time?” Uhura’s voice roused him. “What’s going on?” she asked.

 _I’m going insane, that’s what_. Jim forced a smile on his face. “Nothing, really, you said it yourself. Not enough, um, action, I guess.”

“Wait until we approach the outer border of the Federation,” Uhura said. “Until then, you better find yourself a hobby.”

 _And some fucking peace of mind._ Jim aimed for the door. “You’re right,” he said and gave the others a nod before he left. “As you were.”

As soon as the doors of the turbolift closed behind him, he activated the _Millipede_ subroutine and then sent the lift to deck six. At least Khan was in his quarters and not back at the engines.

 _The restlessness will go away once I see him,_ Jim thought to himself. _I just need to make sure._

Yet activating the bell of Khan’s door had no effect. No one was answering, not even after the third time Jim rang. Uncertain how to proceed, Jim waited a couple of minutes more before he tried again – nothing.

“Computer, security override for door fourteen. Authorization Kirk, delta alpha five-two-five.”

The sheer wrongness of this action almost made Jim choke on his own words, on the other hand leaving again was no option either. And Khan had shown him barely anything but hatred until now, so this couldn’t make things much worse, could it?

Much to Jim’s surprise, he didn’t have to engage in an instant fight once he crossed the threshold. Instead, there was total darkness apart from the light shining through the open door.

“Khan?” Jim asked. Was he sleeping? Going by Khan’s irritability and the injuries today, he clearly needed some rest. Jim was just about to turn around again when he saw a movement on what he remembered to be a low padded bench.

“Computer, lights, twenty percent,” Jim ordered and took a few steps in so the door would close. The outline of the body on the bench stirred.

“What do you want?”

Hostile as ever and not the slightest bit drowsy – Khan had definitely been awake. However, the way he pushed himself up to stand was less energetic than his voice, and despite his attempt to hide the dark gash on his throat, he didn’t turn away quickly enough.

“You sustained some pretty bad injuries today,” Jim said. “I thought I’d better find out myself if you were all right. Which you aren’t, I can see that from here.”

“As I told Dr. McCoy, they will heal,” Khan declared.

“Why haven’t they already?” Jim insisted.

“They will,” Khan repeated, eyeing Jim warily. Although the distance between them had stayed the same, Khan appeared to prepare for a retreat if necessary. _Like a skittish horse,_ Jim remembered Scotty’s words.

“Come on, you know I’m here to help,” Jim said. Taking into account how Khan had behaved recently, a little mollification promised better results than confrontation, Jim decided, and tentatively, he set one foot in front of the other. “I’ll be gone right after you let me see how your skin looks.”

Regretting his request the moment Khan pulled up his shirt, Jim was about to take it back when his eyes were drawn to the wounds. Automatically, he stepped nearer, and despite the low light, it was clear that the healing process was just about to start – instead of having been finished for hours, as would have been the case on the planet.

“Why is it taking so long?” Jim asked.

“The burns were more severe than they appeared at first,” Khan explained, but Jim shook his head.

“I was there. They were pretty bad, all right, but usually... I mean, I know how fast your skin regenerates.” Khan fidgeted almost imperceptibly and Jim realized that it was because his own hand had reached out to feel along the rim of the gash below Khan’s ribcage.

“You’ve lost weight,” Jim noted while awkwardly balancing his inability to pull back his hand and his repulsion at the self-conscious acceptance Khan displayed. And as if the unbearable mixture of those warring feelings wasn’t enough, Khan averted his eyes and suddenly, Jim felt a hand on his waistband.

 _Oh no! No, no, no!_ Jim’s mind made itself heard, forcing his fingers to let go and grab Khan’s wrist instead.

“I’m sorry, I...” Jim stuttered. “This was inappropriate. I should have kept my distance.”

“You’ve never been very successful at that,” Khan said with a leer and Jim heaved a sigh.

“Listen, I came here to find out if you’re okay,” he said. “You don’t have to do...that,” he added and peeled Khan’s unresisting fingers from his waistband. When he looked up again, Khan’s face had become a forbidding mask.

“I haven’t got any other leverage, have I?” he hissed. He snatched back his arm and marched past Jim.

“Why would you need ...?” Jim started, but the sight of Khan coming to a sudden halt to hold his head and groan put an end to his train of thought.

“You decide if I live or die,” Khan rasped. “And perhaps I don’t want to die yet.”

Another pained pause made Jim want to rush to him, but the strangely vacant gaze Khan fixed him with kept Jim back.

“But _why_?” Khan asked, however Jim wasn’t sure he was being addressed. “The wish to survive is irrational.” Khan began to pace the room, muttering the last word over and over again.

“Why is it irrational?” Jim tried to interject. Khan didn’t acknowledge him and, reduced to being nothing but a spectator, crushing helplessness paralyzed Jim. He felt his throat constrict while he watched Khan measuring the room like a caged animal.

 _Do something!_ Jim spurred himself on. But what? This was Khan, and no one meddled with him. Unless it was someone like–

“I’d better be off dead,” Jim heard, and reality yanked him out of his thoughts.

“Don’t say that!” he shouted immediately. In what he hoped would be seen as a comforting gesture, Jim closed the distance between them and gently laid his hand on Khan’s upper arm, but the moment he touched the skin, Khan jerked back and raised his fist. Jim instinctively blocked the attack – which never came because Khan stopped short before swinging.

A hard shove put an end to Jim’s bewilderment on the failed attack. He tumbled backward, lost his footing, and when he landed on his ass, his back crashed into the wall. He had not yet filled his lungs with the air that had been knocked out of them when Khan was already all over him, pinning him to the wall and making the pain flare up again.

“Khan, what the fuck?” Jim groaned. “Are you out of your mind?”

He focused on the irate face in front of him and yes, Khan was definitely not himself any more.

 _Call security,_ flitted through Jim’s head, but he suppressed his fear.

“You have to put a stop to this!” Khan yelled. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Jim opened his mouth, but no word came out. The desperation in Khan’s voice had taken him completely off guard.

“You have the power to end all this, Kirk,” Khan whispered. He let go of Jim only to fiercely rub his temples. “Just say the word!”

Before Jim could ask what he meant, Khan leaned his head on the wall next to Kirk’s shoulder, seemingly unable to support it any longer. Jim clutched Khan’s upper body when he started to sag down to the floor and to Jim’s surprise, Khan let himself be manhandled, obeying the hands that hoisted him up against Jim’s shoulder.

 _Holy shit, he really believed me that I’d abandon him out here!_ Jim reminded himself. _No wonder he trusts me even less than before._

“I would never misuse my privilege as captain that way, I promise,” Jim felt inclined to explain.

“Privilege,” Khan spat. Belying the anger in his voice, he remained in Jim’s arms, as if all his energy had been drained and he was surrendering to his fate at the hands of the enemy.

Jim withstood the urge to comb his fingers through the hair that tickled his chin, but savored the weight of Khan’s body pressing into his chest. It was such a novel experience to have him relax like that.

 _Because this isn’t like him at all!_ Jim thought. The fact that Khan was trapped on the Enterprise clearly didn’t go together with his fierce sense of independence. No wonder he tried everything to win back a bit of his power.

 _Over my fucking libido,_ Jim cursed inwardly. For a fraction of a moment, the urge to let the wandering fingers on his waistband go unchecked had been overwhelming.

Jim inhaled. This wasn’t a path open to them. Khan had been right when, back on the planet, he’d said that what they did was unreal. It was even more unthinkable now, wasn’t it?

Briefly, Jim envisioned the utter chaos that would ensue once it became known that the captain of the _Enterprise_ shared a bed with one of the Federation’s most notorious criminals. Simply imagining Spock’s disappointment sent such a stab of guilt through Jim that he immediately wiped his mind to focus on the problem at hand. Khan needed something else anyway, namely someone to take care of him and make his stay on the _Enterprise_ at least bearable.

“Do you sleep much?” Jim asked.

“No.”

The curt answer sounded exhausted and dismissive at the same time, activating a multitude of reflexes in Jim, but the need to help won the upper hand.

“Did you tell Dr. McCoy?” Jim asked.

Khan’s eyelids had stopped their hectic blinking and from Jim’s position it almost looked as if he had closed them and was about to fall asleep.

“If you’re so tired, you could get some sleeping meds from sickbay,” Jim suggested, and he practically felt the body leaning on him became tense again. Violently, Khan roused and staggered to his feet.

“No!” he shouted, wild panic in his eyes. “No medication!”

Jim watched him vanish into the bedroom. Deciding against following him, Jim took a moment to trace the warmth that was still lingering on his upper body.

What the fuck was going on? Was Khan manipulating him? Or was he really that distressed? Jim shook his head, unable to come anywhere near a sensible conclusion, and the constant blending in of unwanted memories didn’t help either.

“Fine, suit yourself, but you’ll report to sickbay tomorrow to have your skin checked again. And that’s an order,” Jim said as he got up. He had to command a goddamn ship in four hours, and at least _he_ should get some sleep before his shift started.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Jim rolled over for the umpteenth time. He closed his eyes quickly, but sleep eluded him as successfully as during the previous hour. Convinced  he would end up like before his shift when he’d lain awake just like now, he rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes.

 _What a god-awful day,_ Jim cursed inwardly. Luckily nothing had happened during his shift, so his hardest task had been keeping his eyes from falling shut.

Unenthusiastically, Jim got up and dressed, grabbed some food from the mess hall and then made a short detour to the engines. Scotty wasn’t on duty and instead of him, Ensign Dost gave Jim a lecture on the repairs that had been completed up to then. Her speech was so wordy that Jim had to stifle the occasional yawn. Hell, that woman was definitely on par with Scotty.

His patience was already running thin when Dost finished her explanations, and hastily, Jim returned to the turbolift.

“Computer, Millipede,” he said. Twelve hours he had resisted uttering the command.

_“Crewman Singh is in his quarters.”_

“Then take me to sickbay.” Jim leaned into the lift’s wall and breathed in deeply. 

There was no way around involving Bones somehow, carefully, and without giving away too much, because whatever was wrong with Khan, Jim couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Not that he hadn’t tried. For hours, he had mulled over each encounter with Khan, had relived every single conversation and weighed the words, but he had come up empty handed.

Still unsure how to broach the topic, Jim entered sickbay. Bones was treating an officer’s lower arm with a bulky device, and the young man’s sour face conveyed no small amount of pain.

 _Typical showoff, refused an anesthetic to appear more heroic around the nurse,_ Jim thought.

“Morning Jim, erm, Captain,” Bones said. “Come to see the bone knitter in action?”

Jim observed the device critically. It looked a lot smaller than the versions he had been in contact with. New and improved, it seemed. But still painful.

“Not really. I remember the last time such a thing assembled my shin bone. That was no walk in the park.”

The officer grimaced – Parks was his surname, so much Jim recalled from the files.

“Well, as long as your leg didn’t shatter in a thousand pieces like young Park’s elbow, you got away lightly.” Bones shook his head. “What a mess. Good thing I sent for him.”

“For whom?” Jim asked, alarmed.

“Khan,” Bones replied. “I thought, what the hell, the tissue, the nerves – everything will recover a lot quicker.”

Jim gritted his teeth. _Now think of an excuse and get the fuck out of here!_ he thought frantically when the door to the room slid open.

“Captain. Doctor,” Jim heard, but he had directed his eyes toward the bone knitter again.

“Ah, good, here you are!” Bones exclaimed. “Let’s see what you can do apart from blowing things up.”

Ignoring the awkward silence his remark produced, Bones grabbed a syringe, and Jim’s eyes followed it to Khan’s arm with the rolled up sleeve. Red liquid trickled into the empty barrel and when Bones ended the drawing and went to the testing equipment, Jim raised his head to face Khan, equally dreading and anticipating what he would find.

Khan’s and his eyes locked and Jim had to take a step back, so fierce were the memories of overwhelming lust crashing down on him. They charged the air and his entire body, making him gasp for breath.

 _Touch!_ his hands commanded. _Take what’s yours!_

Instead, Jim grabbed the nearest counter to steady himself or keep himself from pouncing as both seemed necessary, and he saw Khan doing the same. Frozen in place while his whole system was energized by incredible longing, Jim remained poised to attack until suddenly, Khan tore his gaze away to look at the injured crewman in horror.

“Doctor, do you still need my assistance?” Khan asked hoarsely, but already set out for the exit. Jim needed a moment to understand why he was fleeing, but then it dawned on him: There would be side effects – for _Parks_!

“What? No, no,” Bones said, and before Khan went out of the door, he sent an almost inaudible “you’re dismissed” after him.

Studying the young officer, Jim tried to find signs of arousal, but there was no change apart from the color that had returned to the formerly pale face. The first indication of sexual agitation? Jim dismissed the thought when hot rage started bubbling up in him.

“You see, the material I gathered during Spock’s treatment is of quite a lot of value when it comes to making comparisons,” Bones said and recorded more data with his tricorder. “Mhm, that’s strange. I don’t know if it’s because of the Vulcan physiology, but somehow, the activity of the blood isn’t as pronounced in humans as it was in Spock.”

“Isn’t it accelerating the healing process?” Jim asked.

“It is, but I expected more.”

“Perhaps there’s a problem because of yesterday’s wounds? They’ve healed by now,” Jim said.

“His cell division might be overtaxed, right,” Bones muttered while he continued scanning.

“But I do feel a lot better, sir.”

 _Of course you do, Parks,_ Jim remarked inwardly. Against his will, he wondered how Khan felt right now. Was he driven to this guy?

Anger seized him, and with some effort, Jim concentrated on the situation at hand again. It wasn’t wise to stay in the same room as Parks, Khan’s decision had been right although his reasons for leaving had been different.

“I’m also on my way, Dr. McCoy,” Jim said and hastened toward the door.

“Yes…Captain,” Bones said absentmindedly. “There was something…”

“What?” Jim asked and stopped.

“I’d like to show you something that I found yesterday,” Bones answered while checking the readings of his tricorder.

“Can it wait?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bones said and dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

Relieved, Jim escaped to the turbolift. If Bones had just looked up once, he would have immediately seen that something was off, but thankfully he had been too absorbed in his work.

“Captain’s quarters,” he commanded before he thought better of it. “Turbolift stop,” he added, and the cage came to a standstill. Jim squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clear his head from the scene in sickbay, but to no avail.

As if they had been standing in the sweltering heat between rocks and bristly plants. Khan had been transported there as well; Jim was convinced he had seen it in his eyes. They had thought the exact same thing and the incredible connection the blood had formed had been established again.

Which was impossible! There was no blood! This was just his imagination playing tricks on him!

“Computer, Millipede!” Jim shouted and pounded his fist against the wall.

_“Crewman Singh is in his quarters.”_

“Then take me there!”

He was going to find out if he had read that look correctly or if he was searching for a fantasy, intent on misinterpreting each sign that could be linked to it. Yet upon arriving at Khan’s door, he received no answer to his repeated ringing of the bell.

“Khan, I know you’re in there!” Jim ground out and pressed his ear to the door. He thought he had faintly heard his own voice, so Khan had to be standing on the other side or… Jim inhaled, stifling his growing exasperation.

“Computer, scan for the biosignals of Crewman Singh.”

 _“Location unclear,”_ the computer answered.

“What does that mean? Specify.”

_“Presence is fluctuating in cargo bay three.”_

“Fluctuating?” Jim asked and clenched his fists. _That cunning bastard!_

He ran back to the lift and directed it towards cargo bay. Remembering Khan’s recent preference for darkness, he didn’t activate the light when he crossed the threshold to the large room, so he had nearly missed him during his search.

“Not really a healthy choice to make camp here,” Jim said to the shadow at the foot of a container. “The force field’s supposed to keep the radiation _away_ from you, remember?”

The figure didn’t move, so Jim went to the opposite wall and sat down on the floor. “Light, thirty percent,” he said and watched Khan’s frown becoming visible.

 _Not exactly a promising sign,_ Jim thought, but beckoned him to come over. After a while, Khan left his place at the container and plunked down next to Jim. _Well, perseverance still works,_ Jim noted with some satisfaction.

“Let’s hope Ensign Parks doesn’t cross your path anytime soon,” he said. Khan huffed out a bitter laugh.

“I couldn’t refuse Dr. McCoy’s request, could I?” he retorted.

“And it’s not like I entered my experience in any of the medical logs,” Jim said, and flashed Khan a crooked grin. Answering with an undecipherable look, Khan inclined his head, and before he knew it, Jim mimicked the move. He was just about to close the remaining distance between them when an insistent warning popped up at the back of his mind, yelling at him to stop. Khan was studying him and _not_ leaning in for a kiss!

Looking away quickly, Jim cursed the automatisms he couldn’t keep under control. “Do you feel it– Parks, I mean?” he clarified hastily.

“The distance will prevent a development like last time, I think, but…” Khan answered and paused. Jim turned his head to find out if he could identify the reason for his hesitation. Staring at the container opposite him, Khan was apparently warring with himself. “You wouldn’t have taken the blood had you been in the accident,” he stated at last.

“You’re right,” Jim answered directly and Khan compressed his lips.

“Of course not,” he muttered.

“I can’t let it happen again,” Jim said, but the words felt so astonishingly wrong that he continued almost seamlessly: “Not like _that_.”

Khan leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

“You seem to need every milliliter of your blood yourself anyway,” Jim said. He bit back the rest of the sentence because repeatedly informing Khan that he looked exhausted didn’t feel right. The fact that he had made a mistake when testing the sensors had been telling enough: An Augment didn’t make mistakes.

“I’m so tired,” Khan whispered to Jim’s surprise. “So tired of everything.”

“Listen, I know this isn’t an ideal situation,” Jim said and kept himself from reaching out to comfort the distressed man. “But you can trust me.”

A weak snort was all Khan uttered, but he appeared to relax, his head tipping to the side while his breathing became more regular.

“Khan?”

Visibly fighting his way back to wakefulness, Khan blinked, bewildered.

“You need to rest, okay?” Jim said and pushed himself up to stand. “Go to your quarters and sleep.”

Khan looked away and stayed where he was. “I can’t,” he growled.

Jim shook his head. “This is the second time you’ve fallen asleep in my presence. On the fucking floor!”

Abruptly, Khan got up. He brushed past Jim and headed for the door. Used to his sudden exits, Jim chased after him and clutched his arm.

“What is it?” he asked although Khan’s irate face showed nothing but revulsion. “Please!” Jim implored. “You know you can tell me!”

“It’s _because_ of your presence! I can’t sleep unless you’re with me, satisfied?” Khan shouted, the pain in his voice cutting right through Jim. Gripping the shirt with all of his might when Khan attempted to wrench free, Jim didn’t let go, not even when the fabric started to tear.

“I promised I’d help you and I meant it,” he said and inhaled, pulling himself together. He released Khan before taking some purposeful steps toward the door.

“I won’t go back to sickbay,” Khan said, his voice still shaky.

“As if I would take you to sickbay now,” Jim muttered before he straightened, adopting the most professional expression he could muster. “You need to sleep, you need me to assist you. What’s the big deal? Let’s go to your quarters.”

Thankful for the still closed door, Jim waited for Khan’s next move. He wasn’t sure if Khan could see the insecurity that had him in a fierce grip, compressing his lungs and hammering his pulse against his temples, yet going by the fact that he looked even more torn than Jim felt, the chance of him paying close attention to anything around him was slim. So when Jim approached the door to make it open and then nodded toward the turbolift, Khan followed him.

They marched in silence, just hearing the occasional greeting. No sidelong glances, nothing.

And why should people bother? _This is just the Captain and an engineer,_ Jim thought, gritting his teeth. He could do this: help Khan without sending them both into a tailspin. As often as he had been in Khan’s quarters, it didn’t even feel strange to go there again, and behind the door, Jim immediately picked up the communicator that lay discarded on the floor.

“Don’t do that,” he said, and held it out to Khan.

“Because you feel safer knowing where I am?” Khan asked, ignoring Jim’s hand.

“I want to know that _you’re_ safe,” Jim answered. He winced. The last time he had said something similar, he hadn’t quite lived up to his claim. “Now, let’s tuck you in.”

He gave an involuntary grin at the phrasing and saw a faint smile grace Khan’s lips as well. It had to be the first since he had entered the ship, Jim thought, marveling at it as long as it lasted.

Khan shuffled to his bed and laid down on it, shoes and all. Helplessly, Jim searched for an alternative to joining him on the mattress and found it in the form of a chair he brought over from the main room.

“Computer, lower the light to sleep level,” he said and saw Khan’s eyes close in unison with the dimmer function.

“You don’t have to do this,” Khan breathed, but simultaneously seemed to slip away. Jim couldn’t believe how easily he let go, the tension in his face disappearing. Groggily, Jim slid down in his chair and felt drowsiness overcome him as well. It couldn’t hurt, could it? Taking a short nap as he hadn’t slept more than three hours after his shift?

Jim folded his arms, placed his head on the uncomfortable backrest and waited. Khan’s breathing had become regular, a soothing, hypnotic rhythm that lulled Jim to sleep although he had the impression that he continued hearing it…it was always there, in the background, calming him, creating a counterbalance to the noise and the panic…the voice… Khan’s voice–!

Jim woke with a start.

“No! Leave me alone! Don’t…!” he heard and briefly had to get his bearings before he shot up from his chair, ready to face the attacker. There was no one though, just movement on the bed. Jim’s eyes adapted to the light and he clutched Khan’s hand, which immediately cramped around his. The erratic jerks that were shaking Khan’s body didn’t stop though, and neither did his incoherent stammering.

“Khan, it’s okay, you’re on board the Enterprise,” he said, but Khan didn’t wake up. If anything, his thrashing intensified to such a degree that Jim had to kneel on the mattress to immobilize him and keep him from falling out of the bed. “You’re safe, Khan, listen to me!”

Violently, Khan fought back, but Jim clutched him even harder, repeating his words over and over again. Gradually, they seemed to get through to Khan although he didn’t open his eyes. So Jim stayed where he was, pulling Khan to his chest in an awkward embrace while feeling the frantic up and down movement of the ribcage become slower.

“It’s okay,” Jim said, more to himself, because the body he was clinging to didn’t lose its feverish heat. Something was going on inside of Khan, and it couldn’t just be the emotional conflict that working for Starfleet brought with it.

_Or working with me._

“Kirk?”

Jim automatically tried to pull back his arms to give Khan some space, yet he couldn’t shift without risking rolling him over and out of bed.

“Yeah, sorry, I–”

“Kirk, is that you?” Khan repeated and turned his head. Jim took a closer look at him. Just blinking weakly, he didn’t seem to be fully awake, yet the low light made it hard to tell.

“Yes, it’s me, don’t worry, I just kept you from–” Jim began and flinched when Khan raised his hand. Instead of shoving him away though, he traced along Jim’s face – as if he wanted verify the words.

“You’re here,” Khan stated, his voice carrying such relief that Jim first had problems identifying the sentiment.

“Sure I am,” Jim said and quirked a smile. “Now go back to sleep, I’m gonna stay as long as I can.”

The hand let go of Jim’s face and almost instantly, Khan’s eyes fell shut again, belying the fact that he had been awake.

 _It shouldn’t be like this,_ Jim’s mind informed him when he turned his head and Khan’s curls tickled his nose. _He’s never been weak. This is supposed to be…different._

Conjuring up the instances when he had slept pressed against Khan, Jim closed his eyes to shut out the room. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he let the events on the planet come to the forefront in all their suggestive potency. The sand and the sweat, the slippery body in the pool, cold and hot skin that challenged his fingertips... God, how glorious it had been to conquer that seemingly invincible monster! And how addictive it was to surrender to it!     

Jim opened his eyes and inhaled, adding the smell of Khan’s hair to the mental inventory he was visiting. His arm, on which Khan’s upper body was resting, was already starting to prickle and tingle, but the thought of disentangling himself was unbearable.

 _We could’ve been more than just sex,_ Jim thought. _But we were already great at that, no question about it._

Yet the best part of it all had been meeting the man behind the mask. What he wouldn’t have given for at least another week to find out more about _him_! To leave the power struggle behind and enter a new phase, whatever it might have looked like.

If they’d had that chance, it probably would’ve led to some kind of closure. Would have replaced the images of fighting and fucking with more of those other moments – when they had been two regular guys who had run out of gas in a desert and were about to discover something unexpected. Something as curious as the fact that whatever happened, they could always fall asleep when the other one was around.

 _Would Khan have tolerated being held like that?_ Jim wondered. After another week, perhaps. Arriving at the station had put a damper on the whole situation, however the signs had been promising at the end.

Jim let every part of his body relay the information it was getting and it supplied him with the feeling of muscle and sinews under a thin layer of cloth. Too thin, Jim realized when arousal greeted him like a good friend, tugging at the mental barriers he could barely keep up anymore.

 _And what if Khan being on the Enterprise isn’t just a second chance for a reformed convict?_ flashed through Jim’s mind, and he ripped his eyes open. Cautiously, he pulled out his arm from underneath Khan.

 _It wouldn’t be right._ Jim propped up his head and watched Khan’s deceivingly peaceful slumber. Whatever they would call it – using one’s leverage or exploiting a subordinate – it would come down to the same problem. Yet looking at the whole situation realistically also showed that there was no chance in hell that _nothing_ would happen. The scene in sickbay had brought this fact home convincingly.

Trying not to wake him, Jim gently caressed Khan’s forehead and temple. They were sticky with sweat.

 _Whatever is wrong with him, I’m not responsible for it,_ he reminded himself. _At least not more responsible than_ he _is._ _But in contrast to him, I could make a change._

Taken by surprise by his last thought, Jim contemplated the possibilities. Would Khan let him near again? After all that had happened? Subconsciously there seemed to be a certain readiness, if calling out in his sleep was an indicator. So relying on their instincts promised a solution. If he could –

 _“Jim? McCoy here,”_ his communicator blared, jolting him out of his ruminations. As quickly and stealthily as he could, Jim got up and stole out of the room. He waited until he had reached the hallway and then answered.

“Yes, Bones?”

_“About what I asked you earlier… Do you have time now?”_

“Sure, I’m on my way,” Jim said. Still caught up in a limbo, he crossed the distance to sickbay like he was remote-controlled by the computer, and only when he saw Bones’ worried face, he connected to reality again.

“What’s wrong?” Jim asked and moved behind Bones so he could look at the monitor he had turned to again.

“I don’t know, it might be nothing. But yesterday, when I examined the scans I made of Khan, I saw something that the tricorder hadn’t registered as an abnormality.” Bones zoomed out of the detailed image and now Jim could see that it was a human body. Or at least resembling a human, if the data was Khan’s. “You see those?” Bones asked and pointed at two rectangular spots, one below the nape and one in the middle of the back.

“Yeah, sure, what are they?” Jim asked. “Part of the augmentation process?”

“No, definitely not. Those things are artificial,” Bones answered. “Highly sophisticated technology.”

“So you _could_ scan them?” Jim said and Bones shook his head.

“I know this because I _couldn’t_. Whatever they are, they have the ability to distort my instruments, and either Khan was infected with some kind of alien ghost bug during his time in prison, or…” Bones frowned, zooming in once more to examine the perfectly shaped four-sided figure next to the spine.

“Or what?” Jim asked impatiently. “What is it?”

“Or someone implanted something into him that effectively hides its insides from our view. And this would only be possible if it had some kind of invert cloaking device,” Bones muttered before he looked up. “Something like that doesn’t exist, does it?” he asked.

The stretch of silence that followed was so uncomfortable that Jim wished he could scream out his frustration to end it.

“It shouldn’t,” he answered eventually, but trying to be vague felt a lot like admitting defeat.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Jim stared at the distant stars which seemed to stand completely still no matter how fast the ship was going. Why did everything take so fucking long?

“I can’t wait for our first destination,” someone said to him.

Jim looked up. Sulu had turned around, giving him a small, knowing grin.

“Yeah, right,” Jim said, pretending to have been caught out. “When will we arrive?”

“Five hours, if we keep up this speed.”

“Keep it up then,” Jim said. He checked the display on his armrest. Thirty minutes. That was the time span he was interested in. His shift would be over and he could meet Scotty in the mess hall at last.

Scotty had been intrigued by the tale of the technology in Khan’s back, but scanning them without Khan’s knowledge would present a challenge. Jim was thankful that he didn’t have to explain why it had to be done sneakily. Witnessing Khan’s strange behavior and the accident had motivated Scotty’s sniffer dog instincts sufficiently.

_Twenty-five minutes._

“Captain, do you wish to discuss the different strategies I devised in case the new sensors manage to penetrate the mist surrounding Trasmo V?” Spock asked.

“Yes! Enlighten me.” Jim shouted and jumped up. He went to the science station and listened to Spock’s explanation about the elements he wanted to scan for and how he planned to find the source of the magnetic interference.

“I’ll be fun to do some actual exploring for a change,” Jim said when Spock had finished his sober presentation.

“Fun is not the intended goal on this mission,” Spock retorted.

Jim laughed out loud. “But a welcome extra,” he said and saw the corners of Spock’s mouth twitch before they returned to their original position.

“There will be a great amount of data,” Spock remarked, almost wistfully.

“Sure, Spock,” Jim said, laughing again. “We’ll collect all the data you want when we’re on our way through the mist.”

Spock looked up. “You mean _you_ are on your way. I surely won’t be part of the shuttle’s crew, as the one who designed the new shields and sensors should accompany you.”

The voice was as even as always, but Jim knew Spock well enough to pick out the tiny irregularities. It had cost Spock to say those words – giving up his professional distance would have been worse though.

“I mean…” Jim exhaled. Would it lead to anything if he reasoned with Spock now, making him defend a position he had been reluctant to assume in the first place? Rather not. “All right,” Jim conceded. “But it’s not going to be the same without you.”

“It is a short trip,” Spock remarked in what Jim identified as a form of typically understated Vulcan consolation.

“Understood,” Jim said and smiled. “You’ve got the bridge, Mr. Spock.”

On his way to his quarters to shower and change, and even up to the point he arrived in the mess hall, Jim enjoyed the resonance of his light-hearted exchange with Spock. Things were slowly becoming normal again and it felt damned good.

As Scotty wasn’t there yet, Jim ordered two beers and sat down at a table. The moment he raised his glass though, Scotty plunked down opposite him, and immediately downed half of the ale at his side of the table.

“Good god,” Scotty moaned and tore at his collar. “Sometimes I think I’m working in a sauna.”

“Glad you could make it on time,” Jim said. “And I’m sorry I asked you to do those scans. He didn’t notice anything, did he?”

“That guy’s seriously off his rocker.” Scotty knitted his brows. “I mean, he usually would’ve known what I was doing the moment I pretended to check the plasma relay behind his back.”

“But did you find out something?”

Scotty paused to think. “I dunno. Well… as far as I can see, the implants aren’t connected to his nervous system, and I can’t measure any emissions, so they’re not directly affecting him, I think.”

“They aren’t?” Jim asked. “But how do you explain his behavior?”

“Stress?” Scotty said and shrugged. “I mean those things are surely monitoring him, although I canna say _how_. It’s driving me round the bend that I have no idea what’s inside of them!”

“You mean you couldn’t at least form a theory?”

“Oh, of course I can form a theory,” Scotty remarked dryly. “Here it is: They’re _cloaked_.”

Jim glowered at him. “That’s it? These devices are a part of the surveillance surrounding him and he’s acting weird because they force him to change his lifestyle? Do you at least think we could get them out?”

“Why should we _want_ to get them out?” Scotty asked, bewildered. “They were put there for a reason, Jim! Otherwise, Starfleet wouldn’t have made such a huge effort.”

Jim opened his mouth, but shut it again without uttering a word. What was he supposed to say? That it was wrong to treat a convict like that? That he hated to see Khan so demoralized?

All of this would arouse suspicion. Even Scotty would realize that something wasn’t quite right and he’d run to Bones again.

“I’m just interested in the technology,” Jim tried to distract him and Scotty’s face lit up before his expression became downright worried.

“But what if they’re not just surveillance?” he asked. “What if they’re... erm, what if something happens when we’re trying to beam them out?”

“You mean then they could hurt him?”

“It’s possible. Or they wouldn’t, I don’t have a clue!” Scotty finished his beer and then seemed to brood on a particularly unpleasant problem, going by his scowl. “I know someone who could quickly work out more about those things,” he muttered.

“What? Who do you mean?” Jim asked.

“You bloody well know who I mean,” Scotty grumbled.

Jim looked into his glass which was still almost full. There was just one person on this ship with more technical knowledge than Scotty. “Khan,” Jim said tonelessly.

“And that’s pretty much out of the question, now is it?” Scotty snorted. “Make the thief catch the thief.”

 _But it’s the only option left,_ Jim thought. “Yeah, that would be crazy,” he said instead. “You know what, Scotty? I think I should go to my quarters and–”

 _“Captain? Remas speaking,”_ Jim’s communicator announced.

“Yes, what’s wrong?” Jim asked the chief of security.

_“There’s been a theft in the geology lab, sir. Mr. Spock is also on his way.”_

“A what?” Jim blurted out. “Never mind, I’m coming.”

“Someone’s nicked a piece of rock?” Scotty asked curiously. He rose with Jim and followed him out of the mess hall.

“If that’s really the case, I have to give Remas a lecture on priorities, I think.” Jim entered the tubolift. “Geology lab,” he said and sighed. “What’s wrong with this fucking mission?”

“Stuff appears inside of people, disappears from places,” Scotty muttered. “After two lousy weeks, that’s something.”

When they arrived in the lab, a visibly agitated assistant gave an account of how, in one minute, he had been examining the asteroids and in the next, they were gone. Vanished into thin air.

“Maybe someone took them as the first souvenirs on this trip?” Scotty suggested.

“But I stood right next to them! No one but me was in the room,” the ensign maintained.

Jim looked at the table. Everything else – trays, tricorders – was still there.

“Can we use the new sensors inside the Enterprise?”

Scotty started to squirm at Jim’s question. “That’s possible, yes, but I’d like to have Khan around when we do it.” Jim nodded. “Crewman Khan? Please report to the geology lab immediately,” Scotty told his communicator.

“May I be of assistance?” a voice said behind Jim and he whipped around. Spock had sneaked up on him in his usual fashion.

“We’re definitely in need of some logic,” Jim said. “This is a mystery to your taste. Although I guess you don’t know Easter, do you?”

“A human tradition that included the hiding of unfertilized eggs in various natural environments so that the family offspring had to search for them,” Spock explained, making Jim and Scotty guffaw.

“Precisely, Spock.” Jim snorted. “Now imagine the eggs take the form of asteroids. Off you go!” He smiled and held Spock’s bewildered gaze until he saw understanding dawn on him. Someone cleared his throat.

“Seems we’re all here,” Scotty said and looked past Jim.

“Mr. Scott,” Khan said. Jim turned around. “Captain.”

“Khan,” Jim replied, noting with some relief that sleep had recharged Khan a little. His eyes had reclaimed some of their fierceness, and by the way Khan scrutinized everyone present, he seemed to have enough excess energy for open hostility again. “So let’s continue with our search. You all know our goal: the asteroids we recently took on board.”

Scotty and Khan put their heads together over a PADD and Spock walked in a circle with his tricorder.

“The sensors don’t pick up anything,” Khan said. “They must have been removed from the ship.”

“But as Ensign Gonzales didn’t leave the room, and was the only one present, the asteroids must have to be here,” Spock answered.

Jim smiled. “Now you just have to find them.”

“Which might not be that easy as they’re alive,” Khan added and everybody turned toward him.

“What does that mean?” Jim asked.

“The log entry about the asteroids includes footage about their trajectory and formation. I would call it a formation,” Khan said. “To achieve this, you have to have a minimal form of intelligence.”

“You’re telling me they’re like a flock of birds?” Jim asked.

“Although this is just _one_ explanation,” Spock interjected.

“Nothing else makes sense,” Khan ground out.

“Many other possibilities remain.”

At the last remark, Khan had narrowed his eyes at Spock, who replied in kind. The tension was mounting with such incredible speed that Jim gave a nervous cough to break the silence.

“Never mind that for now,” he said. “Where have they gone?”

“Yes, Mr. Spock, where have the asteroids disappeared to?” Khan asked. “On their _own accord_?

“There is no proof...” Spock began.

“Apart from applying logic and looking at the _facts_ ,” Khan finished. “I heard your species was once famous for that.”

“Do not presume to speak of –” Spock started, clearly aggravated, but he fell silent when Jim grabbed his and Khan’s arm to pull them towards the exit.

“May I have a word with you?” Finally, his instincts had kicked in, reminding him that he should do some actual commanding for a change. “What’s your problem?” he asked Khan when they were outside.

“I don’t have a problem. I’m just trying to do my work,” Khan replied, his eyes still fixed on Spock.

“Okay, let’s all calm down and keep an open mind with everyone’s suggestions, all right?” Jim said.

“Then I suppose my help is no longer required,” Khan snapped and waited. When Jim didn’t react, he continued: “Am I dismissed?”

 _You…idiot!_ Jim fumed inwardly, but kept his annoyance at bay. “Thank you for your input, Crewman Singh. You can return to your quarters now,” he said in a voice so frosty that he put himself off with it. Khan turned around wordlessly, aiming for the turbolift.

 _What the hell?_ Jim thought. He signaled Spock to stay where he was and went into the lab to instruct Scotty and Remas about the report they should submit. When he returned to the corridor, Spock had really remained exactly on the same spot, but he was evading Jim’s gaze.

“Are you okay?” Jim asked.

“Yes,” Spock answered, his eyes still trained on the floor. “I should not have...”

“Spock, that was a human reaction,” Jim explained, and the words made Spock’s face darken even more. “I understand this.”

It took a while until Spock seemed to come to terms with himself. He looked up. “Thank you for tolerating my unprofessional behavior,” he said.

“That’s what friends are for.” _And perhaps you’ll remember this when, one day, it leaks out what I did to you,_ Jim added inwardly.

“I would like to return to my post,” Spock announced and Jim nodded.

“Do that.”

 _Work – what I wouldn’t give for that,_ Jim thought and watched Spock go. But after so many hours on his feet, he should rest for a change – a plan which would surely be ruined if he didn’t immediately address Khan’s outburst. _So, obviously Spock’s more affected by Khan’s presence than he admits. That’s just natural, isn’t it?_

Khan’s problems stemmed from another source though, and it didn’t matter if Scotty liked it or not, Khan had to be included in the investigation concerning those implants. Jim headed off for Khan’s quarters and to his surprise, he was let in.

“Thanks for answering the door for a change,” Jim said.

Khan was leaning against the opposite wall, his arms crossed on his chest. “It’s not like I can keep you out, can I?” he sneered.

“Yeah, sorry for that,” Jim said sheepishly. “And I mean it.”

Unsure how to begin, he browsed the room. It hadn’t been especially tidy the last time, but he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it. Now it was bordering on chaotic though, with clothes hanging over each chair and wrappers lying on the floor. Jim took a closer look.

“Is that what you eat?” he asked. “Space rations?”

“Now and then.”

“You should come to the mess hall,” Jim went on. “The food synthesizers aren’t that bad and you don’t have to be…alone all the time.”

“You’re right, I should mix more,” Khan said sarcastically and Jim rolled his eyes.

“Just calm down,” he said. “I’m trying to make the best about this fucked-up situation, and so should you.”

“Of course, _Captain_ ,” Khan spat. “What would you like me to do?”

Ignoring the irony, Jim planted himself in front of him. “I know it’s not easy for you, but sometimes you’re way out of line. What was that all about, in the lab? Why couldn’t you just…?”

“ _Function_?” Khan finished.

Jim reached out his hand to establish the connection he wasn’t able to bring about with his words. “I want to help you!”

Trying not to wince when Khan grabbed his wrist, Jim pulled back his arm, but couldn’t.

“Just end it and spare yourself the trouble,” Khan snarled, anger in his voice and in his eyes. Frantically, Jim chanced another attempt to wrench himself free – resulting in Khan yanking him around and shoving him into the wall.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Jim shouted while he stifled a pained moan. Still keen on avoiding a fight, he just bore the pressure on his shoulder and hand. “You’re here, on board this ship, that’s a goddamn fact which isn’t gonna change, is it? Now shut the fuck up about this!”

Khan bared his teeth. “You…humans! What a pathetic lot you are! You manipulating, condescending, overbearing vermin! You don’t even have the guts to end my existence!”

“Why are you saying that?” Jim wished his voice was firmer. “Please, there’s no need–!”

“You know what I am!” Khan shouted. “There’s no place for me here. I’m merely a _thing_.”

“You’re not, you’re part of my crew!” Jim cried. The pain in his wrist was slowly becoming unbearable.

“I’m nothing in comparison to… _others_ ,” Khan said.

“Others? What are you…?” Jim paused. Who’d been with them? Scotty, Remas…and Spock? Khan had completely ignored him at first. That was before he flew at him! “Wait a minute! Are you _jealous_?”

“You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you?” Khan snarled.

“Hell, yeah, I would!” Jim blurted out before his mouth snapped shut. _Shit!_ he thought, but Khan just blinked before a tiny, questioning frown appeared on his forehead.

“You would,” Khan repeated as if he needed to affirm the words. The grip around Jim’s wrist vanished and he felt a hand snake around his nape instead. Had Khan been that near before?

Unable to remember what their conversation had been about, Jim‘s mind raced regardless. “I…” he started, but Khan bridged the gap between them. Cautiously placing his lips on Jim’s, it felt like he couldn’t bring himself to applying more pressure.

“What are you waiting for?” whispered Jim against Khan’s mouth.  

“Make it go away. Please…” Khan pulled back and his eyes got a haunted look. He let go of Jim. “Please stop it. Please…stop it… Stop,” he repeated, stumbling backward. Jim’s hand shot out to keep him from falling.

“I will, I promise!” Jim shouted, but Khan didn’t hear him anymore. Squeezing his temples as if he wanted to subdue the discomfort he was feeling by force, he continued to mutter his plea, even when Jim guided him to his bed.

“You should sleep,” Jim said and maneuvered him onto the mattress. He lay down as well and pulled the unresisting Khan against his chest. “And there _is_ a place for you here.”

 _This can’t be caused by stress,_ Jim thought when Khan’s babbling ended. He interlinked their fingers and felt an answering pressure before Khan fell asleep almost instantly.

“Computer, alert me once we’re close to sensor reach of Trasmo V,” Jim said.

A sound confirmed his order and exhausted, Jim let his eyes fall shut. Attuning his heartbeat to the one thumping against his ribs was more comforting than anything, chasing away the worries about Khan’s suffering and easing the lingering craving for more contact.

When later, the sound of the communicator woke him, Jim was snatched from deep sleep and he could barely orient himself.

“Alarm off!” he whispered urgently to avoid waking Khan. With some effort, he unraveled the tangle of limbs Khan and he had become. At some time during the previous hours, Khan had rolled over, putting his leg over Jim’s but not letting go of his hand. Reluctantly, Jim got out of bed and went to the bathroom to ruffle his hair in front of the mirror. At least he didn’t yet look like the mess his mind was in.

“Computer, when will the planet be in sensor reach?” he asked quietly.

_“Star date–”_

“Computer, _minutes_!” Jim hissed.

_“Trasmo V will be in sensor reach in eight minutes and forty-seven seconds.”_

“Fuck!” Jim cursed and rushed out of the bathroom. At the door of the cabin, he peered into the hallway to make sure no one was around, and then jogged to the turbolift. Someone would surely think about alerting him to their approach of the planet, as eagerly as he had awaited it. No one would intentionally request his whereabouts as they all assumed he was in his quarters, but it could still be happen by accident, and then…?

 _“Specify your destination,”_ the computer prompted him and Jim realized that he had already stepped into the lift.

“Where is Mr. Scott?” he asked.

“Mr. Scott is in shuttlebay two.”

 _Thank God,_ Jim thought. “Take me there.”

In the hangar, Scotty sat over a PADD, his brows furrowed and his lips pinched.

“Ready to launch the thing?” Jim asked and Scotty gave a start.

“What? Jim!” He jumped up, but then his enthusiasm abated. “Erm, well, about the shuttle… Khan was still testing things, you know.”

Rubbing his chin and scrunching his nose, Scotty was a pitiful show of embarrassment.

“Khan won’t be able to finish it,” Jim said. “Can you do it for him?”

“I…think so.” He seemed to successfully battle his insecurity.

“Is there something I–?” Jim’s communicator gave off an alarm and he tapped it. “Yes?”

 _“Ready to send a probe into ze atmosphere,”_ Chekov’s voice announced.

“Send it off,” Jim said and shook his head. “He’s still not feeling overly comfortable having the command,” he said to Scotty, who typed in the codes that would show them the probe’s course.

“Such a wee boy?” Scotty made a face. “No wonder, if you ask me.”

They watched the line that documented the probe’s coordinates until, all of a sudden, it fell away.

 _“I report a failure. Ze probe was lost,”_ Chekov informed them.

“All right, Ensign,” Jim said. “Suspend the exploration of the planet until the modifications on the shuttle are finished. Mr. Scott will report back to you.”

_“Understood, Keptin.”_

Jim grinned at Scotty. “That will put him at ease. And if there’s anything I can do for you…?”

Producing an answering smile that profoundly lacked energy, Scotty inhaled. “I’m pretty sure I can handle it. I’ll call Dost and Hewitt, and, well, that’ll do.”

“Are you sure?” 

Scotty nodded and walked toward the shuttle whereas Jim turned the other way.

 _Put Chekov at ease, what bullshit!_ he thought when he walked down the hallway. _Buy me more time – that’s more like it._

The next hour was his. Testing the systems of a shuttle took at least that long, and going by Scotty’s face, a lot more needed to be done. So including this hour, there could be another eleven until his next shift started.

_Time to help Khan recover and tell him about the implants. Possibly assist him in finding a way to get rid of them._

“Computer, deck six.” The small voice at the back of his head objected in a mere whisper as he walked the familiar path to Khan’s quarters. It didn’t even protest when he overrode the lock with his authorization.

Jim inhaled and stepped into the main room. The light was brighter than when he’d left, so Khan was awake.

 _What am I doing?_ Jim thought, but took the remaining steps to the bedroom. _I can’t wait to return to a convicted killer’s bed and help him escape prison?_

The scene greeting him didn’t make his decision any easier. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Khan was holding on to the mattress as if he wanted to keep himself from getting up. He continued to stare at the floor, although he had surely heard Jim come in.

“Feeling better?” Jim asked, and he saw the fingers digging into the sheets in response. “That’s… That’s good, actually, because I–”

“You were gone.”

Jim’s stared for a moment, flabbergasted. “What did you say?”

Khan jumped up. “Never mind,” he growled. Quickly, Jim stepped in his way, blocking his escape route.

“Please don’t!” Jim entreated, and grabbed his arm to make sure he would stay. “I’m back, right? Everything’s okay.”

“Nothing is _okay_ ,” Khan seethed.

“I know.” Jim pulled him nearer. “But running away doesn’t help. The universe simply isn’t big enough.” He allowed himself a small smile. “We should know.”

“So that’s what we are? Star-crossed lovers?” Khan spat. “Wake up, Kirk, it’s not our own doing or fate that brings us together. It’s _Starfleet_!” He laced the word with so much venom that Jim felt the mood tilt towards disaster.

 _No, not again!_ he thought. He pressed his hand against Khan’s chest, encouraging him to sit down on the bed again.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jim said. “And they owe us big time, don’t they?”

Khan huffed out a condescending laugh.

“I hope you remember.” Jim knelt on the mattress to sit astride Khan’s lap. He half expected to be shoved off the bed. “In the station? Before the rescue team interrupted us?”

Khan turned his head away. Still maintaining a stony expression, he didn’t even blink, and slowly, Jim regretted his bold move. He was just about to shuffle backward and get up when he felt strong hands grab his hips and hold him in place.

“No,” Khan rasped after a while. “I don’t remember what happened.” In contrast to his words, he pulled Jim nearer, gently intensifying the contact. “In my mind it’s playing out differently…each time I think about it.” First letting his hand travel up Jim’s back, he then combed his fingers through Jim’s hair.

“How do you want it to end?” Jim closed his eyes and leaned into the touch a bit more before Khan turned toward him, capturing his mouth. Lips and teeth and tongue immediately learned their territory, but as forceful as he had begun, Khan readily yielded to Jim’s push which sent him onto the mattress. Trusting, eager, and the signs of arousal an irresistible invitation, he lay there, waiting.

“All right, clothes...off!” Jim ground out and pulled his own shirt over his head. “And... I’ll be back in a second.”

He climbed off the bed and all but ran to the bathroom where he knew he would find a basic lotion. After he had snatched it from the shelf, he heard the mirror crack when he slammed the door of the cupboard shut. Stopping in the doorway to get out of his clothes and enjoy the view of Khan struggling with his boots, Jim couldn’t stay away for more than a few seconds before lust got the better of him.

“Let me give you a hand!” He threw the bottle on the bed, pulled off Khan’s trousers, and even managed to finish getting out of his own clothes after he had freed Khan’s erection, making it pop into view. “If they augmented that as well, they surely did one helluva job.”  Supporting himself on the mattress, he gave in to the alluring display and licked his way up Khan’s penis.

“It’s not out of proportion. It...” Khan started, but Jim sucked in the tip, effectively shutting him up before releasing him again.

“…is just that bit wider and longer to make me envious,” Jim finished. _A genuine smile._ It was almost too good to be true. Drawn towards it, Jim crawled up the mattress where he was welcomed by curious lips. Khan explored every crevice of Jim’s mouth, licking off his own taste wherever he could find it before he rolled Jim over and dove down.  Purposeful fingers grabbed Jim’s dick, holding him steady for the mouth to swallow.

“Please…” Jim moaned. He blindly hunted for the bottle and found it at last. “This time you...”

Khan rushed upward to reclaim Jim’s mouth, stifling further pleas just as effectively as his hand. Slick with the lotion’s fluid, it encircled both their erections.

“You should be in control. It’s safer that way,” Khan whispered.

Jim closed his eyes and let himself be carried away until his world was reduced to the dexterous hand around his penis. Unrelenting in its vigor, it coaxed him toward completion until he thought he couldn’t hold back any more. At that moment, it let go and Khan rolled them over again, parting his legs for Jim to settle between them.

“This time,” Jim said, and an almost imperceptible shadow flashed over Khan’s face. He averted his gaze and instead guided Jim’s hand to where the lotion had spilled on the bed.

“Hurry,” he urged Jim on.

 _No way,_ Jim thought and engaged him in a languid kiss while stretching him. Khan calmed down, his body opening up and accepting Jim’s fingers and his probing tongue. Not before long, he began meeting the thrusts though, pushing back on the digits to get them in deeper.

“Please...!” Khan entreated, and automatically, Jim sat back to lift one of Khan’s legs and position himself. Stopping for a moment, he recalled the last time the muscles had let him pass, resisting and inviting him at the same time.

 _I’m never going to last,_ he cursed, and when he pushed in, his way eased by the slickness of the lotion, the friction was too much and not enough at the same time.

“Okay?” Jim breathed because he couldn’t keep himself from sinking into the inviting heat up to the hilt. Yet Khan just looked at him unflinchingly, his gaze heavy with such wondrous intensity that Jim had to focus on his movements to be able to continue.

Desperately searching for the right spot, he finally felt it reverberate through Khan’s body. A choked moan was added to the proof and Jim upheld control of his thrusts although the position was strenuous, and each powerful advance into the accepting warmth saw his restraint dwindle.

“Touch yourself,” he gasped. “I can’t…”

He lifted himself up and gripped Khan’s leg tighter to steady himself. Peeking down, he saw fingers encircle the neglected erection and the long digits pulled and rubbed in a pace that was constantly getting faster. Jim mustered up his whole strength while the heat that was fuelling in his groin became a blaze, and he angled his body to push in again.

“Yes!” Khan gasped and Jim saw the fingers slowing down. _Just a little… Just..._ Jim spurred himself on, but spasms sent subtle vibrations through Khan’s body, making the grip around Jim’s cock impossible to withstand anymore.

Semen spilled over Khan’s fingers and stomach, and Jim let go at last, driving into the welcoming channel. He stifled a shout and almost choked on it when he climaxed, bringing him to the brink of collapsing. But he couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop as long as there was a hint of the pleasure left that made him almost delirious.

“Hell, yes,” he wheezed. He saw Khan slowly catch his breath and Jim tried to do the same when the urge to shove into the tight warmth abated. “Is that…the ending you envisioned?” he pressed out with some difficulty.

“One of them, yes,” Khan rasped. He closed his eyes when Jim pulled out.

“Wanna rest?” Jim dropped onto the mattress and landed in a splodge of lotion. “We’ve made a mess of your bed, sorry,” he said, drawing Khan close to his body. As unresisting as before, Khan let himself be embraced.

For a moment, Jim thought that this time, Khan might sleep quietly. However, not even before Jim had fully relaxed, the body he clutched to his own broke out into a cold sweat.

Jim stared at the curls that had become even darker at their roots. It didn’t matter what Scotty thought. Or Bones. Those implants had to be removed, and fast.


	7. Chapter 7

Jim straightened in his seat before letting the PADD clatter on the table in front of him. It was useless. Analyzing Bones’ and Scotty’s data about the implants hadn’t taken him anywhere. No matter which approach he envisioned, there was always one question looming: Would tampering with the technology trigger something?

 _I have to ask Khan... If I manage to keep on my pants the next time I see him._ Jim’s mind transported him back in time, and he immediately felt like under the influence of the blood again. _If he was awake, we could..._

Jim shook his head, rousing himself. Khan wouldn’t welcome him with open arms.

 _Damn, I’m such a coward. I should have stayed. What if he had nightmares again?_ Getting caught with Khan had seemed to be too much of a risk, but sneaking away wasn’t a good choice either, Jim realized.

 _“Captain?”_ an unfamiliar voice asked.

Jim tapped his communicator. “Yes?”

 _“This is Hewitt, sir. We might be... The shuttle is ready,”_ the voice clarified und Jim pictured the man belonging to it. Tall, lanky, red hair.

“I’ll be down with you in a minute,” Jim replied. Finally something to take his mind off the stalemate he was locked in. Lightly jogging down the corridors, he headed to the shuttlebay. Ensign Hewitt came up to meet him at the door and, without much fanfare, commenced to explain the successful tests he had performed.

“Someone sent Mr. Scott to bed?” Jim asked him.

“What? Oh yes, Commander Spock,” Hewitt said and Jim snorted.

“Didn’t take it well, I guess,” he said.

Hewitt shook his head. “We were ready, so there was no need for him to stay any longer. But yes.” He grimaced.

Jim knocked on the hull of the shuttle. “Let’s give this baby a try then.” He inhaled and then activated his communicator. “Crewman Khan? Please report for duty in shuttlebay two in…twenty minutes.”

A rather long time, but in case he’d been sleeping, he’d have the chance to get his system in motion before he showed up. Jim let Hewitt explain more details and slowly it became clearer how the complex modifications would protect the shuttle and make scanning possible.

The engineer hadn’t quite finished when Khan entered. He looked composed and concentrated, but Jim saw the signs that proved he’d not fully recovered. The eyes flitted around nervously now and then, and his skin still had a hint of the waxen tone it assumed when the feverish episodes hit Khan.

“Captain,” Khan muttered and averted Jim’s gaze.

 _Didn’t take it well that I left,_ Jim thought to himself. _Now the shit is starting all over again._ “Crewman,” he muttered and took the PADD from Hewitt to hand it to Khan. “As you designed the new shield and sensor technology, you’ll be part of the first mission of this shuttle. Congratulations.”

Khan had grabbed the PADD, but then remained motionless, staring at it as if he couldn’t believe what was happening.

“Just a test flight,” Jim said. “To find out–”

He fell silent, taken aback by the accusing look Khan shot him. At the same time, it appeared as if he tried not to panic, breathing in slowly and in such a strained way that Jim doubted he managed to get any oxygen into his body.

“We won’t stay long,” Jim continued at last. “Bring home as many samples of whatever we find in the mist and then head back.”

“We?” Khan asked. “So you’re coming too?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jim said, but then clenched his teeth. That had sounded wrong somehow, and Khan’s words echoed in his mind. _Abandoning the ship to be part of every away mission_ – Khan had said something along those lines, and he had been right.

At the moment though, he seemed utterly relieved by the prospect that Jim was accompanying him, and without hesitation, he boarded the shuttle.

“Permission to leave?” Jim asked the bridge after he’d carried out the undocking procedure.

 _“All systems are functioning within normal parameters. Coordinates have been set,”_ Spock’s voice informed them.

Impatiently, Jim watched the port’s doors open until the signal flashed up, announcing clearance. He navigated out of the bay and then logged onto the coordinates which took them on a loop toward the planet.

“Wow, that looks like pea soup,” Jim remarked.

“We’ll see if it’s just as thick.” Khan leaned back in his chair.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Jim. “Go on, monitor the shields.”

“I have no authorization,” Khan grumbled, and a quick check showed that access to the panel had really been restricted. _Spock’s work, no doubt,_ Jim thought, and entered his code.

“Now make yourself useful,” he said with a grin, earning a frown in response.  Reluctantly, Khan started typing commands.

“I tried to avoid visual impairment, but I couldn’t rule it out completely,” he explained when the view on the swirling mist became slightly blurred. “The shields will–”

 _“Captain?”_ Spock’s voice sounded through the shuttle. _“We will soon lose communication.”_

“Everything’s all right,” Jim said. “Entering the mist in three, two, one…” There was crackling in the line. “Spock?”

The absence of an answer was proof enough. Now they were on their own, and as if to give them a taste of their vulnerability, the journey was becoming increasingly bumpy.

“You think the hull will hold?” Jim asked, admiring the speed with which Khan was adjusting the shields.

“You’ll know the moment it stops withstanding the exposure,” Khan grunted.

“The scanners are working.” Jim tried to extend their reach, but failed. “Not very far though. There’s nothing apart from that sorry excuse for an atmosphere. Perhaps it’s a gas giant after all.”

“Perhaps.” Khan was still distracted by his work.

“Or it isn’t,” Jim said when a slight anomaly on the screen became a pattern. Khan looked up and Jim pointed at the display. “I present to you: Trasmo V, the rocky planet.”

As quickly as Jim’s joy had flared up it died down again because after the coordinates had vanished for a second and the screen had become blank, a new representation flashed up again. The sensors had recalibrated themselves and showed that the shuttle was nearing the surface faster than Jim had anticipated. A whole lot faster!

“Initiate landing!” he shouted. Automatically, he activated the thrusters at full force and the belts had not even started to fasten when the shuttle touched down and came to an abrupt standstill. Clinging to the armrests, Jim looked to his side and found Khan in the same position.

“We’re shit at landings,” Jim said and relaxed at last. “I think that pretty much sums it up.”

“Trust you to always find a way to kill yourself,” snarled Khan.

“Hey! _You_ designed the sensors!” Jim stopped. Even before he had finished the sentence, Khan’s face had twisted into a guilty expression.

 _Gotcha!_ Jim thought, but refrained from saying it. He remembered vividly how Khan had reacted the last time he’d been caught out worrying. _But I’m sure this time I wouldn’t end up with a concussion and a transfusion,_ flitted through Jim’s head.

He threw Khan a knowing grin. “Then let’s do something a little less dangerous. How about we get samples of the rock?”

Khan narrowed his eyes. “You do that. I’ll check the source of the sensor malfunction,” he said and turned to the console to resume typing. “It seems that there was a sudden power surge,” he muttered.

Jim went to the back of the shuttle and programmed the drill, watching its descent on the display afterward.

“Just as I thought!” Khan shouted.

Jim looked up. “What? What have you found?”

“The power surge masked the fact that our energy was depleted.”

“You mean also for propulsion?” Jim returned to the front of the shuttle.

“Yes, Kirk,” Khan said with increasing annoyance in his voice. “The engines took energy from the sensors when they were drained. Therefore the leap in the calculations.”

“But how...”

 _“Contamination warning,”_ the computer blared, sending Jim to the back of the shuttle again. He programmed a force field around the rock samples that had just been pulled inside. Flickering after it had established itself, the field seemed to be instable.

“I’ll have to switch to auxiliary power to maintain that field,” Khan said.

“No, wait!” Jim stopped him. “Let’s get the rocks out again! We need every bit of energy for ourselves.”

Khan jumped up and snatched Jim’s hand away from the console. “Don’t!”

“What the fuck?” Jim shouted. He tore at his hand, but Khan didn’t let go. “They’re contaminating the shuttle!”

“But this planet drained us of our energy.” Khan released Jim’s hand to resume typing commands.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to scan the rock,” Khan said without paying Jim any heed.

“But that’ll use up too much of our energy!” Jim couldn’t believe what was happening. His eyes instinctively searched for the phasers. “Life support will fail even sooner than we thought!”

“It’s our only chance!” Finally Khan raised his head, meeting Jim’s gaze. “You have to trust me, Kirk.”

Jim gritted his teeth and nodded. Even when life support automatically switched over to auxiliary power, he ignored all the warnings that crossed his mind.

“If the planet absorbs energy, perhaps I can get that energy out again,” Khan muttered. “Stay here, I’ll fix this.” He disengaged the container with the sample, grabbed a flashlight and opened the door to the engines. Before he vanished through it, Khan hesitated for a moment. “You won’t die,” he said to Jim. “And don’t worry. I’m not out of my mind. Those devices aren’t driving me completely insane. Not yet!” And then he was gone.

Stunned into silence, Jim tried to grasp what he had heard. Khan knew! He fucking knew about the implants! How was that even possible?

The lights went out. “Khan?” Jim shouted. “Are the shields up?” He was still alive, so they had to, but Jim could practically feel the oxygen levels dropping.

Switching on his tricorder, he went to his seat and sat in the low light. Khan had known! And what was even worse, he seemed to assume that everyone around him knew as well. No wonder he hadn’t tried to find help!

Jim coughed and swallowed when inhaling deeply just resulted in a fraction of the oxygen he had needed reaching his lungs. Something had to be depleting it even faster than normal and Jim was starting to feel increasingly dizzy.

“Khan?” he shouted again when his head began to swim. “You have to hurry, okay?”

Somewhere at the edge of his consciousness, Jim thought he heard a sound. Reinitiate? What sense did that make? They had no energy.

 _You won’t die,_ Jim’s mind repeated, and he fumbled for the display to press what he hoped were the right commands. His head sagged forward, almost hitting the console when, all of a sudden, his shoulders were held in place.

“Kirk?”

Jim let himself be pushed back into the seat. “Restored…power?” he breathed.

“Probably,” Khan answered. Jim heard him sit down and there was another sound. “The next few minutes will determine if reversing the propulsion’s polarity helps the inductors to extract the energy.”

“Next…minutes?”

“Yes, minutes,” Khan replied. Something was pressed on Jim’s face and greedily, he inhaled. “Oxygen from the medical equipment,” Khan explained when Jim’s vision cleared again.

“Thanks,” Jim said and held on to the device. He looked to his side and saw Khan leaning into the backrest while his eyelids drooped. “You want this?” Jim asked and held out the oxygen to him.

“Take it. You need it more than I do.”

Jim put the small mask over his face again and breathed in. “So we die simultaneously. How comforting.”

As ironically as Jim had tried to make it sound – it didn’t come out that way. It really _was_ comforting to know that neither of them would be alone.

“I’m sorry I didn’t include larger oxygen cylinders in the equipment,” Khan said. “I…avoided adding extra weight.”

“We weren’t supposed to leave the shuttle, were we?” Jim answered after activating the oxygen cylinder once more. Without it, he had felt like he was suffocating, as thin as the air around him had become. “And I didn’t pay attention…as well… Too distracted,” he gasped, but still managed a small smile before using the inhaler.

“Stop talking, Kirk,” Khan ordered, but Jim shook his head.

“No, I have to…tell you,” he panted. “I’m sorry for what they…did to you. We will…get those implants out if we survive this.”

Khan snorted weakly. “You can spare yourself the effort, Kirk. I tried with all the equipment I could get hold of, including the new sensors.” He produced a malicious grin that reminded Jim too much of Marcus. “They chained me to that ship…quite effectively.”

 _That’s why he had been so alarmed when the away mission started!_ In Jim’s head, all kinds of ugly scenarios played out. What if the surveillance system had considered leaving with the shuttle a breach of security? What would it have done?

_Once it became clear that I was part of the team, he calmed down, but why–_

Khan’s composure was suddenly ripped away. Coughing and gasping for air, he struggled to overcome his panic. Jim inhaled again before he pressed the mask on Khan’s face, and he waited until Khan’s survival instincts got the better of him and he took a deep breath.

“We don’t have much…time,” Jim panted. “So about last night… I…I couldn’t stay. As the captain…”

“I understand,” Khan interjected, his chest rising quickly. “You would be…compromised.”

The word lingered in the air, tainting each memory that had involuntarily resurfaced at Jim’s remark.

“That I wasn’t there for you during the trial... It wasn’t right,” Jim continued with some effort. He guided the mask to his mouth again and activated the device – only to find it empty. “That’s it,” he whispered, but Khan shook his head and clutched Jim’s hand.

 _No,_ he mouthed when his grip became weaker. Jim tried to keep his eyes open as long as he could, fixing them on Khan, who still looked fiercely determined. As if he wanted to battle their impending death with his sheer will. Yet sooner than he had anticipated, Jim’s strength left him and his eyes fell shut, reducing his world to the warm hand holding on to his.

 _I’m sorry,_ Jim whispered – at least he thought he had. Khan’s hand twitched almost imperceptibly, soothing him and calming him down. It wasn’t so hard to bear any more…the increasingly fluttering heart and the shallow breathing…

 _I’m not alone,_ Jim repeated in his mind. _I’m not–_

“Kirk!”

Startled by the violent tugging at his hand, Jim forced his eyes open.

“Breathe already!” Khan growled.

Jim inhaled and at the same time his lungs filled with oxygen, the instruments lit up. “It’s working!” Jim knew he was grinning like a madman, but he didn’t care. Like a fish out of water, he took in the air. “You did it!”

“Not yet,” Khan clarified and let go of Jim’s fingers. After entering several commands, he knitted his brows. “It will take some time to reach the energy levels needed to activate propulsion. And I can’t guarantee that the process remains stable.”

“To hell with propulsion, we have oxygen!” Unable to suppress his giddiness, Jim jumped up. “You singlehandedly worked a new power source into our engines, do you know what that means?”

“That I found a way back to my other prison?” Khan barked, shutting Jim up for good. Compressing his lips and casting his eyes downward, Khan stared at the panel.

“And what about me?” asked Jim. He supported himself on Khan’s armrests, effectively blocking a possible escape. “You said you’d save me. And you kept your promise.”

“Don’t get sentimental,” Khan snarled, but his voice lacked the usual degree of anger. “I saved myself as much as I saved you, so stop the celebration. Or is this an attempt at making me regret we’re alive?”

“We might not survive after all,” answered Jim, and Khan looked up. “You said it yourself. So we’d better stop postponing things.”

A smile was all the warning Khan got, before Jim sealed his mouth with a kiss. Yet as pliantly as Khan reacted to the tentative cajoling of Jim’s lips, he refused the invitation to more than just cursory contact.

“Don’t repeat your mistakes,” Khan whispered. “This is what near-death experiences do to people.”

“Bullshit.” Jim drew back, but still didn’t give Khan a chance to get away. “And I stand by my mistakes.”

“You’re an idiot,” Khan mumbled.

“Yeah, I missed you too.”

Khan held Jim’s gaze and it seemed as if he wanted to say something in return, but then kept himself back at the last moment. Of course he would. But it didn’t matter.

The fact that he reached out to pull Jim into his lap was enough of a response for Jim, who used the momentum to rid Khan of his shirt. On impulse, Jim ran his fingers through Khan’s hair – touching those soft curls had become a compulsion, he reckoned.  

 “And I’ll get the devices out of you,” Jim said. “I don’t care what it takes.”

“Not even I could find out what they are. What makes you think–?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Jim maintained, trying to ignore Khan’s smile, which was more pitiful than affectionate.

“Stubborn as a mule.” Before Jim could answer, he was forced to fling up his arms, preventing his shirt from being torn to pieces when Khan pulled it over his head. “A farm boy in space,” Khan mumbled. “Nothing about you should be so…irresistible.”

Fingers gently traced along Jim’s spine and wandered further downward until they suddenly dug into his ass, drawing him nearer and making his growing erection bump into a more pronounced hardness.

“Nothing,” Khan whispered against Jim’s lips. But accepting Jim’s invitation from earlier wasn’t enough. Neither the probing tongue, the abundance of skin for the hands to roam over nor the friction produced through layers of fabric could satisfy the need in Jim.

“We need to…” Jim muttered. “… off.”

With the same urgency Jim felt, Khan clutched him, lifting him up without great effort.

“Whoa…” Jim reached behind himself. He managed to enter a command before he landed on the control panel. “Hell… Khan!”

“It’s okay. You deactivated it.” He pressed Jim backward with a kiss. “And this is the only place in this miniscule ship where I have enough free movement.”

“I don’t,” Jim panted and grabbed the edge of the panel.

“You don’t need it.” With another self-confident move, Khan pulled down Jim’s trousers and freed his erection, and the instant the fingers wrapped around his length, Jim was glad the shuttle was so small and he could lean his head against the hull. Fisting him with sure movements, Khan swooped down for another kiss, entangling tongues and giving Jim more of the taste he was craving for.

Desperately trying to withstand the onslaught and to get closer at the same time, Jim exchanged his hold on the panel for Khan’s back, pulling him nearer and achieving the opposite in the end. The tongue’s exploration and the fingers’ purposeful rubbing ceased, yet before Jim had registered what was going on, his hips were pressed into the console while his length was sheathed in staggeringly soft heat. Although playful at first, Khan’s teasing tongue worked him in earnest much too soon for Jim’s liking.

“Slower…please!” he begged, but his defenses were smashed by an expert circling of the lips around his glans, and helplessly, he gave in to the coaxing. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he heard the computer make an announcement about the shuttle’s energy status – a fact that couldn’t be important – as Khan ignored it, diving down and encircling Jim’s member almost up to the root instead.

“I’m… I…” Jim warned him, but it was too late. The power of his imminent climax ended Jim’s control, and he gripped Khan’s hair, holding him in place and shoving his cock deep into the welcoming warmth. Khan’s throat constricted around him and he hummed, multiplying the sparking sensations until the gentle rippling travelling through Jim’s body became a surge of pleasure.

The passage accepted everything he had to give, and Khan swallowed eagerly, not allowing one drop to be spilled. Jim watched his own body as it was shaken by the force of his orgasm, but even more mesmerizing were those lips which attended to their task with such earnestness.

 _Let go!_ his mind commanded, but his erection was already starting to wane while he still couldn’t wrap his mind around a possible end of this connection. He felt Khan’s tongue snake around his softening penis, probing for another taste of semen, and only the thought of taking the initiative could convince Jim’s fingers to release Khan’s hair at last.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” Jim started and combed his fingers through the curls. “That was rough.”

“You always forget that I can take it.” Khan got up.

“Doesn’t make it right though,” Jim said with an apologetic face. “The point of being augmented isn’t about handling an extra bit of dick.”

The heated look Khan gave him promised more possibilities than Jim could deal with at the moment, but the almost bruising kiss that followed convinced him that he needed to put into practice at least some of them – that very instant. Yet before he managed to slip his hand into Khan’s trousers, Khan retreated again.

“What? No!” Jim protested, but Khan continued dressing, only pausing to throw Jim’s shirt at him.

“We don’t know how much energy we have left,” Khan said and activated the engines. Jim was still considering how he could buy some time when the shuttle already lifted off.

“You’re in for serious payback,” he muttered and slipped into his shirt. His hands didn’t want to obey him at first, they insisted on touching something else than the console. Yet the warning lights flashing up on the display and the constant necessity to recalibrate the sensors as they kept ceasing to function for unpredictable intervals produced enough adrenalin for Jim’s mind to focus on the shuttle.

“Will we make it out of here?” Jim shouted when the engines’ power dropped critically. Khan hammered in commands, but couldn’t achieve more than a minimal rise of energy. Training his eyes on the window, Jim hoped for a star to appear or at least for the mist to become less impenetrable.

“Engines failing!” Khan shouted and Jim felt his hand being clutched – only to be released again when the shuttle ascended from the mist just at the moment the lights went out and the shields dropped. Jim hit his communicator.

“Enterprise! Get over here and activate the tractor beam!” he ordered. “Ready to beam us out at my command!”

 _“Rendez-vous in ten seconds,”_ Sulu answered.

Breathlessly, Jim watched the ship being brought about, and when the tractor beam caught the shuttle, he couldn’t suppress his relief. “They’ve got us!” he shouted and Khan answered his smile.

Jim was just about to reach out for him, but the arm he wanted to touch disintegrated under his hand and he simultaneously noticed a strange whirring in his head.

 _We’re being beamed out,_ Jim thought, bewildered, and before he disappeared, Khan’s gaze conveyed the same irritation. “But I didn’t give the command…” Jim started. He peered outside and then his mind was already being fragmented into energy signals while it was still trying to process the sight of four Klingon Birds-of-Prey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sunny thanks for the betaing, NurseDarry!


	8. Chapter 8

Materialization still buzzed in his head when the first conscious thought already set off a mental alarm.

_That’s Klingon! We’re on a fucking Klingon ship!_

Jim whipped around, only peripherally registering the guards and their weapons. “Khan!” he blurted out, endlessly relieved to see him in one piece. Khan shot him a pointed glance, shutting him up, and almost simultaneously Jim felt one of the weapons poke him in the ribcage. The hard barrel directed him toward the exit and Khan had received the same order it seemed, as he was starting to move as well.

“Are you all right?” Jim whispered urgently.

“I don’t feel any change,” Khan hissed. “It seems to be enough that you’re with me. Someone with the trigger.”

“What?” Jim asked, but the weapon rammed into his back made it clear that talking wasn’t on the Klingons’ agenda.

Concentrating on his surroundings, Jim tried to keep their path in mind. The ship was very much alike the station they had been to. Just metal and no comfort whatsoever. But the technology he saw was impressive, perhaps it could explain how it had been possible that the Klingons had appeared out of nowhere – although an uneasy feeling had already told Jim how they had managed it.

 _Cloaked ships_ , he thought. _Of course they don’t give a shit about treaties._

They stopped in front of a door which slid open when one of the guards hit a button, and a shove sent Jim forward. Disoriented, he stumbled into the darkness.

“A little light?” he complained, and two small diodes lit up, barely making it possible to see a hand in front of one’s face. “Nice interior! Cozy!” Jim shouted when Khan walked in as well. A grunt, and then the door closed, locking mechanisms audibly clicking in place.

Jim looked around. No benches – typical Klingon. Khan leaned against the wall and inhaled. Not even the weak light could mask the fact that he was nearing his breaking point again.

 _Damn, he can’t lose it now!_ Jim stepped over to him and shuffled nearer until their shoulders were touching.

“What do you think they want?” Jim asked.

“They’re Klingons.” Khan snorted. “What do you expect?”

“Trade us in for something or someone? Put someone under pressure?” Jim speculated.

“We’ll find out soon enough.” Khan sounded increasingly tired and Jim was about to suggest he should sleep when he remembered Khan’s earlier remark.

“A moment ago, what did you mean?” Jim asked. “You said that it was enough that I was with you.”

Khan shrugged. “As someone with the trigger...”

“A trigger?” Jim asked. _For what?_ He wanted to add, but stopped himself from saying it out loud because he already knew the answer. His breath hitched. It was impossible. They wouldn’t do something like _that_. “You mean for the implants? Like... Like a password?” he pressed out eventually.

Khan turned his head to look at Jim, quizzical at first and then almost astonished. “You don’t have it,” he stated tonelessly, frowning at himself.

“What are you…? _Of course_ I don’t have a password to blow you up!” Jim hissed. “I would never… How could you believe I would ever agree to something like that?”

Turning away and lowering his head, Khan remained silent.

“Hell,” Jim mused, “no wonder Starfleet wanted to keep the implants a secret.”

“De Luca gave me a good idea of what they can do,” Khan said.

“ _Admiral_ De Luca?” Jim couldn’t believe what he was hearing. De Luca had been the one who had fought most fiercely to reduce Khan’s sentence. That man had made himself a name as a proponent of reconciliation!

Khan pressed his hands against his temples and groaned. “Those morons,” he seethed. “They didn’t even bother to make it painless. Or maybe the pain’s a bonus, just for me.”

Clenching his fists, Jim kept himself back from reaching out and embracing Khan. The Klingon guard monitoring surveillance would have a field day with that.

“We’ll both have a look when we’re back on the Enterprise,” he said instead, but Khan still kept his eyes trained on the floor.

“When we’re back…” he began without finishing the sentence.

“They’ll find a way to get us back,” Jim assured him, but the words didn’t do anything against the strange sadness in Khan’s expression.

“Of course they will,” Khan said evenly. “You’re their captain.” He looked up to. “If anyone understands, it’s you.” His gaze was becoming more and more penetrating. “You know how strong it is...that bond between a captain and his crew.”

I…I think…” Jim stuttered. “Sure…”

Before he could ask Khan what was on his mind, the door was unlocked and opened. The guard coming into view barked something at them and as Khan set in motion, Jim assumed that he had ordered them to follow him.

It wasn’t hard to recognize the way back to the bridge. There, Spock's image already greeted them on one of the screens.

_“Captain, are you uninjured?”_

“Sure, Commander, everything’s fine.”

“ _In this case I need to inform you that in an exchange for the Enterprise leaving the Trasol System, you will be allowed to return.”_ He paused shortly. _“I agreed to these terms.”_ He waited until Jim blinked and gave a small nod. _“Sending over coordinates for transport.”_

Immediately, the peculiar whirring of beginning molecular disassembly began, and the next sight was the familiar wall of the Enterprise's transporter room.

“Jim, good to have you back!” Scotty’s voice. “What the hell is this all about?”

Jim first checked whether Khan had been beamed back as well. Only then did he answer Scotty. “No idea, but let’s get outta here.” He aimed toward the exit, only to be beaten to it by Khan.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Jim shouted. Khan didn't turn back, he just stepped into the turbolift. The doors were already closing when Jim slipped in as well.

“Deck six,” Khan said.

“Turbolift. Stop!” Jim ordered and searched Khan's gaze. "I thought you were coming with me. To the bridge.”

Jim didn’t like the grimly determined look that made Khan's features even more pronounced.

“You know that my presence on the bridge would cause more problems than it would solve,” Khan said. "So may I return to my quarters?"

"Are you tired?" Jim asked.

"Yes, I am." The answer didn't sound in the least like it though. Jim heaved a sigh and let his shoulders sag.

“Then you'd better rest," he said. "I just...I thought it would be a good idea to have you around.”

Khan inclined his head. There was no need to say what Jim could read in his eyes. _You are an idiot,_ they chided him, annoyed at first before the look became increasingly fond. Jim started to fidget under the unabashed stare and had almost flinched when Khan took a step and cradled Jim’s face.

Pleasantly alarmed, Jim prepared for a bruising kiss, but the lips that descended on his were unexpectedly tender, touching upon his mouth several times before they pressed down more firmly. Jim closed his eyes and felt almost weightless, only kept on the ground by Khan’s hands that had wandered to the back of his head and ruffled through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he heard Khan whisper, but he couldn’t make any sense of it. Just when the lips and the hands disappeared all of a sudden, leaving Jim floundering, he linked his mind to reality again.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Still in a haze of mild arousal, Jim cleared his throat.

“Turbolift to deck six,” Khan said evenly, and he turned away to face the door for the remaining seconds of their journey. The brief spell of tenderness had passed like a dream and it had been instantly replaced by such bitterness, that Jim saw Khan's jaws working visibly.

 _What the hell is going on in your mind?_ He had nearly asked him, but the lift stopped and Khan bolted out of it.

“Bridge,” Jim said and shook his head to himself. Perhaps Khan had been on the brink of losing control again and just wanted to hide this fact? And that kiss? It couldn’t simply have been just a kiss, could it?

His musings ended abruptly when the door opened to a flood of impressions. Spock was waiting for him at the lift and wasted no time in briefing him about the events during his absence: how Scotty had tried to modify the Enterprise’s shields for a possible rescue mission, the sudden appearance of the Klingons, and the negotiations ensuring his and Khan’s return.

“The Klingon captain was primarily interested on getting us out of this system,” Spock said when they entered the bridge. “It was quite conspicuous.”

Jim looked at the screen. The Birds-of-Prey were positioned around the Enterprise in a semicircle, with the planet providing the other obstacle in the escape route. One of ships was vanishing from sight though, obviously cloaking itself.

“Strange, really,” Jim admitted. “But I’m not in the mood for finding out what’s bugging them.”

“I also would recommend a speedy departure,” Spock agreed. “We should–”

 _“Weapons charge,”_ the computer interjected. Spock’s eyes widened, a reaction that sent Jim into instant panic.

“What? Computer! Abort!” he shouted, and the room was becoming a flurry of movement.

_“Target engaged.”_

Jim felt his entire body freeze. Just the drill from the Academy could override the paralyzing sensation of helplessness, and frantically, Jim entered commands and codes – but to no avail. Unbelievingly, he watched heavy phaser fire open the attack on what appeared to be empty space. Three torpedoes aimed at the same coordinates.

“Oh, no! No!” Jim shouted at the screen. “Don’t let it…!

At his last word, the Klingon vessel appeared again, but it had already lost its structural integrity, multiple hits destroying the hull before a torpedo struck the engines. The whole ship was going up in a blaze of fire – a terrible, short-lived lightning that left only floating debris.

“Red alert!” Jim shouted, and the first hit by Klingon fire shook the Enterprise, forcing Jim to hold onto the console. “Are our shields up?”

“Shields have been activated since the Klingon's arrival," Spock said, and stumbled to his station. The next blow sent Jim to the floor and he crawled to his chair.

_“Shields at eighty-five percent.”_

“Uhura, open a channel!” Jim shouted.

“I’ve been trying to, but long-range communication is down. Wait…”

Jim inhaled, straining against the tight belt that was securing him to his chair. “Uhura, what the…?”

“There was a distress call, Captain! Shortly before communication was cut off.”

“Who sent it, damn it! To whom did it go?”

“Starfleet Command,” Uhura replied. “It said: Klingon attack. Abandon ship. Mayday.”

Another hit shook the Enterprise.

“Captain, we have control of the weapons,” Sulu informed him. “Aren’t we going to return fire?”

“What? No!” Jim unfastened the belt. “After that call, Starfleet’s going to send battleships. If we fire back now, _we_ ’re the ones who made the decision that this is Startleet's war.”

Gritting his teeth, Jim sprinted to Sulu between two impacts. “Do we have propulsion?”

“Just impulse,” Sulu said.

_“Shields at forty-two percent.”_

“Fucking... What the fuck is going on?” Jim ranted. “Who is interfering with all our systems?”

“Deck six, the main exchange node,” Spock said. “This is where the manipulation had its origin.”

 _Deck six!_ Jim held on Sulu’s chair. _But he wouldn’t do this, would he? Why would he…?_

“Let me…” he said and typed in the code for the subroutine, instantly followed by a command to stop the turbolift. _Damn it, damn it… Damn!_ Jim cursed inwardly when the computer refused his command. _I’m so stupid!_

He tried beaming, but the transporters also didn’t work, and all that remained for him was following the blinking dot indicating Khan’s movement. Away from the section with the node, he quickly marched toward the lift, and then? Where  he would go from there and wreak havoc – Jim could only guess.

“Get us into the atmosphere of that planet!” he ordered. “We have to try to hide from the fire.”

“Captain, I have to inform you that even with the modifications Mr. Scott has made, the shields won’t withstand the mist for long,” Spock said.

“Longer than they will withstand the Klingon fire.” Jim went to the door. “We can still surrender when the shields fail. Just stay away from the planet’s surface – it’s sucking out energy.” A direct hit sent Jim into the wall. “You have the bridge, Mr. Spock.”

“Captain, I...” he heard Spock’s voice, but the closing door shut it out. Jim activated his communicator.

“Scotty?”

_“Yes, what–?”_

“We’re going down into the mist!”

 _“Bugger!”_ Scotty swore. _“We can’t…”_

“So you better improve our shields, Scotty,” Jim interjected. “Immediately.”

_“But…”_

“Kirk out.” He didn’t have time for Scotty’s objections. “Computer? Millipede.”

_“Crewman Singh is in shuttlebay one.”_

“Take me there!” The lift set in motion.

 _“Warning! Shields at twenty percent,”_ the computer added.

“Shit!” Jim punched the wall, but the searing pain didn’t help to work off any of the rage coursing through his system. “What the fuck?!” he shouted.

 _He told me!_ Jim thought, mentally kicking himself. Not more than two hours ago, Khan had explained how he had scanned the implants with the help of the Enterprise’s systems. So he had access to the complete system! _God, I’m so blind!_

The door opened and Jim made an automatic beeline for the weapons compartment opposite the lift. He grabbed a phaser and on his way to the shuttlebay and set it on the highest stunning level before thinking better of it.

 _Stunning won’t stop him,_ flitted through Jim’s head, and he activated killing mode. Concentrating on the feeling of betrayal that poisoned each thought of Khan, he barged into the bay, seeking cover behind a large container. Yet a glance at his surroundings showed that it hadn’t been necessary to take such precaution. Khan was standing at a console, typing in commands.

 _He knows I’m here and he doesn’t give a fuck!_ Jim stepped away from his hiding place. “Stop that!” he shouted. Khan didn’t turn around, he just twisted his upper body a little and pointed his phaser at Jim without even looking at him.

“This is on kill,” Khan said. “You want to risk getting hit?”

“You won’t kill me,” Jim retorted with more conviction than he felt. “And now drop that phaser and tell me what’s going on!”

“I’m afraid I don’t have time for the meaningless chit-chat you always insist on,” Khan snarled. “I’m just about to leave.”

He turned toward the shuttle, but Jim intercepted him, aiming his phaser at Khan’s chest and not his head. His training told him that this was a mistake, yet his arm didn’t want to obey him. That he was the only one with such reservations became clear when Jim found himself eye to eye with Khan's weapon.

“Don’t…” Jim’s throat constricted.

“Step out of my way, Kirk!” The threatening stance was weakened by the pained groan Khan uttered. He pressed his hand against his temple.

“Khan, just surrender your weapon and I promise I’ll help you!” Jim entreated. “It doesn’t have to end like that!”

“You’re so naïve. Still thinking that this is about any kind of _choice_.” Slowly circling Jim, Khan always kept the weapon targeted at Jim’s head. “And this _is_ the end.”

As cold as the voice had sounded, the eyes betrayed something else, briefly losing their ability to pierce through Jim with the same steely force the emotionless words had managed to. Desperation flared up in them, only to be wiped away the very instant Khan became aware of his lapse.

 _He’s still in there,_ Jim thought and lowered his weapon. Slowly, he inched forward. “Khan…”

“Stay where you are!” Khan ordered, retreating at the same time. “I give you two seconds. One–”

Jim opened his mouth but the words died on his lips when light flashed up around him, multiple beams that had one target. Disbelievingly, Jim watched the man who had just threatened to kill him stumble forward and collapse on the ground.

“What did you...?” Jim dropped on his knees. “What did you do?” He shouted at whoever was nearing from behind.

“Captain... Sir?”

But the voice answering him didn’t get through to Jim anymore, it remained somewhere outside of his conscious mind. It wasn't important anyway, nothing was important but Khan's pulse that had to be somewhere, if not at his wrist, it should be possible to feel it at his throat – but nothing. Jim ripped open the shirt and gaped at the multiple phaser burns, garishly red wounds with cauterized flesh. He pressed his ear next to one of them and that was when he heard it: the irregular and weak thumping of Khan’s heart.

“Captain to the bridge,” he shouted at his communicator. “Beam Khan and me directly to sickbay!”

 _“Transporters are still not operative,”_ Chekov informed him.

“Damn!” Jim looked around. “Remas, help me!”

Clutching Khan to heave him up, Jim’s struggle with his load was significantly eased when Remas grabbed one of Khan’s arms and slung it over his shoulder. Jim did the same and together, they dragged Khan to the turbolift.

“Sickbay,” Jim panted when the doors closed.

“I can only repeat that I’m sorry, sir,” he heard Remas say. “If we had known you wanted him alive, we would have proceeded differently.”

Jim looked up.

“But Commander Spock had explicitly given the order to refrain from stunning the suspect,” Remas continued. “It wouldn’t have enough of an effect.”

 _And he was right,_ Jim thought, and couldn’t repress the notion that if Spock had really wanted to, he could have found another, non-lethal solution.

 _“Shields at five...”_ the computer announced before it was cut off. The lift stopped and Jim rushed toward sickbay so quickly that Remas had problems keeping up. But Jim didn’t care that now most of Khan’s weight rested on him.

“Jim! Over here,” he heard when he entered sickbay, and then it was just a couple to steps before practiced hands took over, Bones barked orders and the nurses fussed over the wounds.

Exhausted, Jim sat down on one of the other beds. He didn’t dare to look at the scene unfolding now, didn’t want to see the readings on the screens. All he heard was the occasional bleeping of the heart rate monitor, but the intervals between the sounds became longer and longer until they stopped altogether.

 _He’s dead,_ Jim admitted to himself when the minutes passed and no heartbeat was recorded. Only Bones’ staccato of orders set a rhythm. _Gone._ Jim’s hand cramped around the fabric of his trousers and he forced himself to go on breathing although his lungs refused to cooperate. _He’s..._

“Finally!” Bones shouted, tearing through the bubble of grief. Bones’ voice had masked the first signal, but the second one was loud and clear, followed by a third and fourth that sounded like music to Jim’s ears. The heart! Khan’s heart was beating again!

Jim blinked, trying to compose himself, and when Bones walked over to him, he was sure he had eradicated any obvious signs of his true feeling.

“All we can do is wait,” Bones told him. “He’s stable for now.”

“Is he still healing unusually slow?” Jim asked.

“His results don’t reach any of the activity I expected in his blood. But he’ll pull though, I guess,” Bones said and frowned at Jim.

“If he doesn’t wake up, we’ll never find out why he did it,” Jim hastened to add, and Bones turned to the bed where Khan lay, attached to all kinds of scanners.

“Yeah, that's a good question,” Bones mused. "Why did he do that?"

 _To me,_ Jim finished inwardly. “He wasn’t his usual self," he said out loud. "Weak, uncontrolled. Paranoid. What do you think? Could it be those…devices in him?”

“Possible, but at this rate, the only way we’d find out is during an autopsy,” Bones said. “Then we could beam them out all we want, it wouldn’t matter if they destroy him. Clearly, that won’t be happening at this precise moment. You’ll have to wait for your answer, Jim.”

Jim swallowed, pushing away the grueling images Bones’ scenarios evoked. “The alarm’s off,” he said to change the topic. “Scotty must’ve managed to stabilize the shields.” He tapped his communicator. “Scotty? Everything all right down there?”

 _“Aye, shields are holding,”_ Scotty answered, somewhat breathless _. “I linked the shuttle’s upgraded technology to the ship and it worked.”_ He seemed incredulous himself.

“And what about communication?” Jim asked.

 _“I’m on that now.”_ There was a pause. _“But I can’t tell what the heck Khan did. Sorry.”_

“Report back when you’ve got something,” Jim said. “Good work, Scotty, you saved our hides.” He tapped the communicator again. “Spock?”

_“Captain?”_

“Meet me at Khan’s quarters.”

_“On my way, Captain.”_

Meeting Bones’ questioning gaze, Jim shrugged helplessly. “ _He_ can’t tell us anything at the moment.” He pointed at Khan. “So maybe his stuff can.”

Jim marched out of sickbay before he could give another thought to Khan’s state, and he focused on the question that kept repeating itself incessantly.

_Why did he do all this?_

“Everything would be speculation at this point in time,” Spock's voice said, and Jim realized that he must have muttered under his breath while walking along the corridor.

"Perhaps we’ll find something in his quarters," Jim said. He opened the door with the help of his code, and was greeted by the mess he knew from former visits.

 _Don't think of that, don't think..._ "Guess they didn't augment his sense of tidiness," Jim remarked.

They picked up shirts and trousers and empty cups, but there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary until Jim stepped on the tiny remains of what could have been a technical device. Under a chair, he found more of it and he laid out his findings on a table.

“Definitely used for communication,” Spock said. Jim scanned the floor again and his eyes caught on something. He retrieved the fragment from the other end of the room and Spock immediately placed it in a special spot in the puzzle he was assembling. “Long-range,” he added.

“So he could’ve been in contact with, like…everyone,” Jim said. He rubbed his forehead. “But why would anyone give him those orders? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“My theories aren’t conclusive either,” Spock said, and Jim huffed out a laugh.

“Glad I’m not alone,” he said. “And now?”

“We return to sickbay and wait until Khan wakes up.” Spock marched out of the door. “Then there might be another way to get to the information regarding who sent Khan and why.”

“What do you suggest?” Jim asked when they entered the lift. “Sickbay.”

“If he is stable and conscious, I will initiate a mind meld,” Spock stated casually.

Staring at the bright walls of the lift, Jim tried to keep himself from giving away the complete and utter panic those words had unleashed.

 _He would see…everything!_ Jim thought, and he felt his palms getting sweaty. _I need a reason to stop him! Something at least marginally logical!_

“Isn’t it dangerous? I mean, going by Khan’s…instability recently?” Jim asked, but Spock shook his head. He left the lift and purposefully aimed for sickbay.

“Doctor? Is your patient in such a critical condition that you wouldn’t recommend waking him up for a short time?” Spock asked Bones when he crossed the threshold. Bones looked up from his tricorder and scrunched his nose.

“I don’t think he would be ready to talk,” he said.

“I don’t require him to talk.” Spock positioned himself next to Khan’s bed. “I just need him to be conscious.”

“You’re not up to what I think you are,” Bones declared and shook his head at the same time. “You definitely are.”

“It’s the next logical step,” Spock said, and to Jim’s horror, Bones heaved a sigh and started typing in commands.

“Five minutes.”

Spock nodded, seeking for the right spots with his fingers and when he had found them, he just looked at Bones, who entered a final command. Khan hadn't opened his eyes completely, but Jim could see that he had an inkling of what was going on. Before he could react though, Spock was visibly focusing his concentration, taking over the small bit of consciousness Khan had regained.

 _So this is it._ Jim inhaled, bracing himself for what was to come. The moment the procedure was over would mark the end of everything he had built up in the previous years. All that would remain would be accusations, disappointment, and the slippery slide down in his career – if that was even noteworthy in the face of becoming a social pariah.

Jim couldn’t say if they had been really waiting for five minutes or if hours had passed, he just knew that he couldn’t breathe, although his heart was racing. And when Spock finally let go of Khan, he looked at Jim in the exact same way Jim had feared he would.

“You can sedate him again,” Spock said, but kept his eyes fixed on Jim. Endless moments ticked away again, but Jim couldn’t bring himself to taking the first step. Spock coughed eventually, buying time before he began to speak. “The head of the operation is Admiral De Luca; he is the one Khan was in contact with.”

“De Luca?” Bones exclaimed and to Jim's relief, Spock turned to the doctor. “That’s impossible!”

“Additionally, Khan seems to have implants in his body that monitor him and which could also kill him,” Spock explained. “The information he received about them is rather sketchy.”

Slowly, Jim was waking from his stupor. Why didn’t Spock drop the bomb that would end this charade? Unless…he didn’t plan to!

“Everything that could enlighten the recent events is of the same fragmentary quality,” Spock went on. “Khan was given orders and he carried them out.”

“But why?” Bones asked.

“His motivation is the same as before; De Luca threatened to kill his entire crew and this incentive was enough to drive him to sabotage the _Enterprise_.”

Bones gave a bitter laugh. “Talk about history repeating.”

“Indeed,” Spock remarked, catching Jim’s gaze again.

“So we’re no wiser,” Bones said.

“Not necessarily,” Spock said and narrowed his eyes to slits. Jim knew that each of his movements would be studied attentively, so he schooled his face into a neutral mask. “Those devices in him, they are not what De Luca claims they are. Technology like that would be far too advanced.”

“So they’re fake?” Jim asked, carefully avoiding inflection in his voice. “A red herring, something like that?”

“Possibly. The fact that they are cloaked is an engineering marvel. They should not contain another function.” Spock stopped, intensifying his search in Jim’s face. "And they definitely will not kill him."

Something somber settled on Spock's features, and suddenly Jim realized why Spock kept him under such close scrutiny.

 _He's not waiting for a sign with which I’ll give myself away,_ Jim thought. _He's watching out for me. Worrying._

"But Khan isn't safe, is he?" Jim whispered.

"No," Spock said. "He is not."

"Why?" Jim asked, his voice breaking. "You just said the implants are harmless."

"They are." Spock paused. "But this does not change the fact that he is going to die. There is no doubt about that anymore."

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Jim knew that the two men were staring at him. Waiting for him to react in some way, to ask a question or continue the assessment of the situation. He felt their eyes on him like a physical sensation, stripping him of the last vestiges of control and the last bit of resolve that kept him upright. It was as if slowly, his life was seeping out of him, each ounce of strength being replaced by crippling fear.

 _“Captain?”_ his communicator announced. _Scotty!_ Jim thought frantically, and his brain’s sluggishness was overridden by his procedural memory, making his hand shoot to the small device on his chest.

“Yes, Scotty?” Jim cleared his throat. “You want to report success, don’t you?”

 _“Aye,”_ Scotty replied. _“I extended the shuttle’s shields to the Enterprise, but I’m not sure if this construction will hold. It might fry the shuttle’s systems if we’re not lucky.”_

“We’ll find out when it’s happening. What about communication?”

_“I’m on my way. You’ll hear back from me once I find the problem. Scott out.”_

Jim inhaled deeply, but the moment he had to direct his attention to the flashing instruments and the almost ghostly pale form of Khan on the bed again. He had to fight back a surge of nausea.

“So you don’t think it’s the implants?” Bones asked Spock. “Then what is it? The tricorder’s readings didn’t indicate anything!”

“There is a lesion,” Spock said and Jim tore his eyes away from Khan.

“From an operation?” Bones asked. “It didn’t show up on any of the scans.”

“Of course not.” Spock’s answer brought Bones close to snapping, that much Jim could tell. Before Bones could bark an insult though, Spock went on. “You would call it mental damage, I suppose, but that description does not cover the concept sufficiently.”

“Then what the hell is it?” Jim was glad Bones took the words out of his mouth.

“An implanted memory,” Spock stated.

“Oh god, no!” Bones exclaimed. “Don’t tell me it’s goddamn Vulcan voodoo!”

Spock pinched his lips. “There are references of this technique in ancient Vulcan writings. It was supposed to destroy the enemy’s ranks by making the person subjected to it act irrationally. But there has never been proof that it was carried out.”

“So what does it do? Drive you insane?” Bones shook his head in disbelief.

“A normal human would not have been able to withstand it. At all,” Spock added. “A Vulcan would have experienced paranoia and other forms of mental instability after some months.”

“And then?” Jim asked breathlessly.

“Synapses disintegrate and the victims die,” Spock explained. “As will Khan, eventually.”

Jim endured the penetrating gaze and he knew that even a Vulcan could read his face like a book – the glimpse at the truth that Spock had gotten before notwithstanding.

“How long does he have?” Jim asked.

“He must have been subjected to the procedure before we departed on the mission,” Spock said. “And it is clearly draining his regenerative capabilities.”

“That explains the results of the blood scans,” Bones interjected.

“They most probably show a general weakening of the system but no signs of inflammation.”

“Right,” Bones said. “I couldn’t find anything that was out of the ordinary. That’s why I thought it had to be the implants.” He gesticulated helplessly, motioning to all the technology around him. “And now?”

“If you keep him in a coma, he might live for another month,” Spock stated.

 _And if not?_ Jim’s breath hitched.

“You mean we wait until he dies?” Bones asked. “Stand by and do nothing?”

Spock held his angry gaze, but didn’t answer him. When Bones didn’t budge and was about to lose patience, Spock seemed to come to some kind of conclusion, an arching of his eyebrows indicating the end of a debate he had been conducting in his head.

“Mental stress of any sort speeds up the degradation of the brain,” he said. “Perhaps giving him strong tranquilizers can take the place of the coma.”

 _Tranquilizers!_ Just the thought made Jim’s mind reel. _This is all madness! And why doesn’t anyone ask the questions that’s staring us in the face?_

“What difference does this make?” Jim shouted and the two turned to him in surprise. “Why the fuck did they do that to him? I mean, wasn’t blackmailing him enough?”

“If someone is experimenting with that kind of torture, he was a natural choice,” Spock said. “They were fine-tuning their technique for different species, so the original human brain would be next. He is a step towards that.”

“And then send him on a mission? How crazy is that?” Jim asked.

“It is perfectly logical as well,” Spock maintained. “After sabotaging the mission, he would perish. A disposable weapon.”

Jim swallowed against the nausea again, but he knew that he was going to be sick any second if Spock carried on in that vein.

“But no one could have known that we’d meet the Klingons here,” he said to direct the conversation to a different topic.

“Someone knew,” Spock replied vaguely and much too evasively for Bones, who could smell a rat a mile off.

“What did you see in his mind?” Bones asked, and Jim winced. Now there was no chance to avoid the inevitable.

“Just the orders he received from his contact, Admiral De Luca.”

“ _De Luca?_ Are you shitting me?” Bones shouted.

“Khan was supposed to cut off communications and activate the weapons. After that, De Luca told him to destroy the communication device that Khan had smuggled on board. We found the remains of it when we searched his quarters.”

“So he wasn’t supposed to have survived,” Bones explained, more to himself. “And if he had, he’d be dead shortly afterwards, right?”

 _Yes, he will die. There’s no fucking need to shove it in my face again and again,_ Jim thought desperately.

“I’ll leave you to deal with this,” _because I can’t._ Jim forced a neutral expression on his face. “Contact me when there’s…a change.”

“If you allow it, I would like to stay here and examine the data again,” said Spock, and Jim only nodded before he hurried out of the room.

He barely made it to the lift where he collapsed against the wall.

“Turbolift, shut doors.”

Bending over to support himself on his thighs, he breathed in and out and tried to think of a lifeline that would save him from drowning. Barely able to contain himself, Jim steered his thoughts in all directions, but he came back to the same question again and again – one he knew he could answer himself, because it was clear why Khan had betrayed him.

 _On top of everything, he was afraid and nearly insane, damn it,_ Jim reminded himself. _But we could have worked something out._

“Turbolift? Mess hall.”

 _Whatever we did, we would’ve ended up here,_ Jim thought dejectedly. Perhaps not hiding in the misty atmosphere of a planet, escaping the Klingons. But Khan would die nonetheless.

Jim clenched his teeth and braced himself before he entered the mess hall. He grabbed an energy bar and a bottle of water, but he couldn’t stay, just like he couldn’t go to the bridge. As his quarters were no option either, not with Khan in sickbay, _dying,_ Jim aimlessly meandered through the corridors.

On the spur of the moment, he headed for a place where he didn’t expect to meet any of the crew. Although the strange scene between Spock and Khan replayed in his mind when he entered the geology section of the science lab, there was at least no one around to demand anything of him or who wanted him to make decisions  when all he could do was wait.

_Until Khan dies._

Jim squeezed the bottle until it was showing dents. He needed to work this off, find a way to function again. A way to _deal_.

Listlessly he ripped off the wrapping of the bar and even managed to get down two bites. The third one stuck in his throat, but maybe it was the bland taste that made it unacceptable to his body. Jim washed it down with water and let his eyes stray over the surface of the metal counter.

 _Another failure,_ darted through his head. _I can’t even find something that should be in plain view – like those damn asteroids!_

No wonder Khan had managed to keep the fact that he was sabotaging the Enterprise away from him.

“I’m such an idiot!” Jim muttered. How could he have fallen for Starfleet’s flimsy explanations in the first place? When a former enemy was introduced as a helpful ally, he should have been alerted that something was going on. No, instead he had accepted the Trojan horse as part of his crew, ignoring what was hiding right in front of their noses.

Jim gave a start. _Hiding in plain sight! The best option to stay undetected!_

Frantically, he searched for a tricorder, and it took only a few modifications and a very thorough search of the room until he found the first traces of the energy signals he was looking for. One of the metal bowls just to his left emitted something that the tricorder could detect, but the actual nature of the energy was not identified.

Closer inspection showed that it was actually several bowls which had been stacked, all of them producing the strange readings.

“Gotcha!” Jim took one of the bowls and marveled at the perfect imitation the asteroid had achieved. It felt like metal, certainly looked like it, and every standard setting of tricorders would miss the slight aberration of the energy levels. And the new sensors? They must have missed the point by a mile.

“Welcome on board, whatever you are,” Jim said and put down the bowl. “You could have given us a clue, you know?”

He waited for the moment a feeling of awe would course through him, the astonishment that gripped him when the universe again unveiled one of its mysteries, but it didn’t come.

Because this wasn’t a mystery. This was just proof that nothing was what it seemed. Nothing. And he was just stumbling about in the dark until it all eventually ended in death.

“Fuck!” Jim shouted and slammed his fist on the counter before he jumped up and went to the door.

Whatever was going on, his crew deserved a captain who could lead them out of this mess. He wouldn’t accept death, not when there was still time to change the future, and if they ever made it out of the mist, they had to contact Starfleet to avoid a war. And just one man knew how to fix the problem.

 _I have to wake him up,_ Jim thought. _He will repair the damage and then Bones can sedate him again._

Balling his fists, he stormed down the corridor and impatiently endured the ride in the lift. He looked around when he entered sickbay, and to his relief, Spock had left in the meantime.

“Jim?” Bones emerged from behind a large piece of equipment. “Spock’s just…”

“I’m not here for Spock.” Jim glanced at Khan’s sleeping form. _He looks…peaceful_. “I need you...” He paused. “I need you to wake Khan up.”

“What?” Bones bristled. “Didn’t you hear what Spock said?”

“Of course I did!” Jim lowered his head. “Of course,” he muttered.

“So you know that I can’t do it. His wounds may be healed, but they’re not the problem anymore.”

“He’s the only one who can repair the comm system,” Jim said.

“Scotty’s surely close to finding a solution.” Bones slowly inched nearer and it seemed as if he was trying to form a barrier between Jim and Khan. “You’re not going to risk my patient’s life for one of your knee-jerk plans.”

“Risk his life?” Jim straightened, pulling himself together. “God, Bones, haven’t you been listening? He’s going to die, no matter what we do!”

“Just because that green-blooded know-it-all thinks so doesn’t mean that I have to accept it!”

Jim could easily understand the frustration that settled in Bones’ face, and for a fraction of a second, he wished that Spock had spilled the beans about the affair after all. How different everything would be if he could speak to Bones frankly, if he could explain how torn he was and how the idea of endangering Khan maddened him.

“That’s an order,” Jim said instead, his words chilling him to the bone. “And I’d appreciate it if you spared me the backtalk.”

Jim almost expected blood, as much as Bones was biting his tongue. Panting with rage, he turned around and entered commands into a panel.

 _I can follow this through,_ Jim assured himself. _This is what’s best for the crew. This is…_

Khan opened his eyes and they darted around, panicking.

“Shuttlebay…” he whispered. “I was…”

“Shot, yes,” Jim said. “But you’ve recovered from your injuries enough to return to duty and repair the damage you’ve done.”

Disbelievingly, Khan frowned at him before he propped himself up on his elbows. “You want me to assist Mr. Scott?”

“No, I want _you_ to do it and _I’m_ going to supervise you.”

Khan nodded and let his legs slide off the bed. A bit shaky still, he stood and walked two steps.

“Looks all right to me,” Jim said to Bones. “Give him something to wear. I’ll meet him at the turbolift.”

Before Bones or Khan could reply, Jim fled the room. He cleared his mind, freeing it from any thought of what he was doing, but his hands refused to stop trembling, not even in the minutes that passed while he waited by the lift’s door.

“We have to check the sensor subsystems.”

Startled, Jim turned his head. His eyes had lost focus while he had been distracting himself, and now, with Khan only an arm’s length away from him, everything was suddenly too real. Quickly, he retreated and stepped into the lift.

“Deck eighteen,” he said and kept his eyes fixed on the door. There was no need to speak, not in the lift and not on their short walk to where Khan had had his accident.

“Did you fake this as well?” slipped out of Jim before he could give it a second thought. “The fire? Was it just a convenient way to hide something?”

“To make sure I could get back here?” Khan answered without turning around. “You’re free to believe what you want.”

Jim grabbed a flashlight hanging at the entrance of the narrow tunnel and lit their way. He didn’t need to see Khan’s face – didn’t want to – because he could easily imagine the closed-off expression.

For almost an hour, Jim stared at Khan’s back and fingers. There was a small gadget attached to one of the conduits, and once Khan had removed it, he rewired the entire system, painstakingly disconnecting and linking interfaces in a sequence that only he knew.

Sometimes he hesitated, his sure movements becoming slower before speeding up again, and when this happened, Jim knew that Khan was fighting the lesion, trying to keep the upper hand over the disintegration of his mind. During one of the longer spells of absent-mindedness, Jim automatically put his hand on Khan’s shoulder, but it was shrugged off and the rebuttal made Jim so furious that he had almost dropped the flashlight.

 _You won’t turn this into my fault_ , Jim seethed inwardly. He fought his urge to explode, managing to check himself up to the point where Khan attached the cover panel of the conduits. Expecting Jim to walk back to the beginning of the tunnel, Khan turned around only to be blocked in his advance.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?” Jim hissed. “We could’ve figured out a way to get around De Luca’s orders!”

Khan processed the words with some difficulty. “How do you know?” he asked eventually.

“It doesn’t matter, okay?” Jim snarled. “The only thing I don’t understand is how you could do that to _me_.”

Bowing his head, Khan evaded his gaze.

 _For your crew,_ Jim answered the question to himself. “But why did you want to escape with the shuttle?” he continued.

Khan first compressed his lips and Jim thought he wouldn’t reply. “I thought I’d manage to create a decoy. Perhaps the Klingons would have fallen for it,” Khan muttered, and Jim couldn’t grasp what he was hearing.

“And why the fuck was it necessary to point a phaser at my head?”

Khan raised his head and Jim wished he could discern more details of the expression that was directed at him. “You wouldn’t have let me go, regardless of my plan,” Khan said quietly. “But this kind of goodbye was…effective.”

 _So I wouldn’t mourn you,_ Jim finished in his head. He gave Khan some space and picked up the flashlight because he needed to see him, to really look at him. For a change, Jim tried to strip away the burdening past and the rank, and catch a glimpse of the person.

Khan glowered at him. “What is it?” he snarled, but Jim ignored the tone of his voice. All he saw was the man who’d lashed out, cornered, defenseless. Who’d witnessed the loss of his mental faculties only to go on fighting for a crew that had to be just a faint glimmer in the past. Whose physical strength had faded, who’d been burnt and almost killed, and in the midst of all of that, had risked getting caught up in something emotional that had made himself more vulnerable than any ploy he had become entangled in.

“I’m...” Jim began. “God, I’m sorry.” He took Khan’s wrist, expecting him to snatch his arm away.

“Don’t…” Khan said. “You won’t make things any easier.”

“That’s not important,” Jim replied with a sigh. “Because for once, I want to make things right.”


	10. Chapter 10

They stood like that, rooted to the spot, Jim holding onto Khan’s wrist and hoping for some kind of signal. The anger that had clouded his mind in the previous hours was driven out by pain and grief.

 _“Captain?”_ Scotty’s voice interrupted them and Jim had to let go of Khan.

“Yes, Scotty?” Jim snapped, but then checked himself. “Communication working again?”

 _“Well… Yes, actually, I just wanted to tell you about it. But I’ve got no clue why it’s… It wasn’t me, Jim,”_ Scotty stuttered.

“Everything’s all right, I fixed it.” There was no need to invite more questions.

_“You?”_

“Yeah, so you can return to the shuttle.”

_“But how...”_

“The shuttle needs your attention, doesn’t it?” Jim interjected. “Kirk out.” He looked at Khan. “Or is there another system Scotty should check?” he asked.

 _Shake your head! Do something!_ he commanded inwardly, but Khan looked past him, focusing on some nondescript spot at the end of the tunnel.

“Just tell me!” Jim implored. “There’s not much time left!”

Compressing his lips, Khan appeared to fight a silent battle with himself until he huffed out a quiet laugh. “I know.”

It had sounded so defeated, but also relieved at the same time – as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Jim’s chest constricted, and then everything fled his mind when tools clattered on the floor and Jim’s arms darted forwards on their own accord, catching Khan before he hit his head on the machines.

“Khan!” The flashlight slipped from Jim’s fingers. “What’s...? Khan, stay with me!”

Groaning and cringing, Khan slumped down and Jim clutched him closer.

“Too many lights!” Khan shouted although only the floor was illuminated. “They are coming! Why are they touching me?”

“Khan, it’s just me!” Jim held on to the struggling man, who didn’t seem to recognize him and was solely driven by complete panic. “Please, Khan, stop! Everything’s all right!”

Was that whimpering? To calm him down, Jim stroked Khan’s hair, and despite the oppressive heat and their cramped position, he seemed to regain his focus.

“Kirk?” The small voice was so unlike Khan.

“Let’s get outta here.” With great effort, Jim dragged him along, and when they reached the main corridor, Khan was able to walk upright again.

Reluctantly, Jim released him. “You should go to sickbay. If Dr. McCoy puts you in a coma, you’ll stay alive…for longer.” He flinched at his own words.  

Khan stared at him. “For how long?” he asked.

“It’s just… You see, tranquilizers might also work,” Jim stammered. “So you don’t have to be…unconscious.”

“How. Long?” Khan ground out.

“Less than a month if you’re sedated. If not…” Jim paused, gathering his strength to say it out loud. “If not, it’ll be over soon.”

But it was like before, when Jim had unintentionally blurted out the fact that they didn’t have time. Now that he had confirmed it, a strange calm settled on Khan, as if he could finally come to rest.

“What do _you_ want me to do?” Khan asked, and their eyes locked. “Should I take myself out of the game?”

“No, of course not…” Jim’s voice broke. He gently placed his hand on Khan’s upper arm, applying just a bit of pressure to encourage the other man to walk with him. “Let’s go to your quarters. You need to sleep.”

 _Leading a lamb to the slaughter,_ Jim thought as they made for the turbolift. But he couldn’t let go of Khan, couldn’t risk him falling when he was struck down by a seizure, and when they approached room fourteen, Jim followed him inside.

“About what you asked me before,” Khan muttered. “There’s nothing you have to worry about. Your ship’s fine. For now, the crew’s safe.”

“You aren’t,” Jim replied. “And this time, I’ll stand by you.”

Khan squeezed his eyes shut, willing away the pain. “It’s not that severe anymore,” He paused, trying focus on Jim.  “It’s becoming less… _I’m_ becoming less… I can feel it,” he whispered, and blinked, clearing his gaze before he gave a little smile. “Ending it like this is better than dying in a shootout in the shuttlebay.” He exhaled, struggling against the pain, but recovered quickly.

Jim gritted his teeth. Khan had been right. This wasn’t making things any easier. But it was also a chance.

“I want to remember,” he said, giving in to the urge to comb through Khan’s hair with his hand. _Those silky curls…_ “Good things.”

Stubbornly blinking away the stinging in his eyes, Jim vowed to keep himself from going to pieces. _I won’t opt out again, not this time!_

Shedding his shirt when heading for the bathroom, Jim flashed his most provocative come-hither look before he stepped over the threshold. It had done the trick, he realized with relief, although Khan didn’t seem to be too sure what this was all about. He leaned into the wall, more out of necessity than of nonchalance, and watched Jim ridding himself of his clothes.

“Enjoying the view?” Jim asked, laughing.

“Yes,” Khan said, but then closed his eyes to concentrate. “I’m sorry, I…”

“It’s all right.” Jim slid his hands under Khan’s shirt. “Let me...”

He pulled it up and Khan relented, allowing his arms to be peeled out of the fabric. Jim knelt down, assisting him to remove his shoes and trousers.

“Ready for some action?” Jim asked and stood up, attempting to lighten the mood. “Then I suggest we get the grime of the away mission off us.”

“Didn’t you forget something?” Khan asked.

“You mean those?” Jim inclined his head at Khan, studying his reaction when he hooked his fingers into the briefs’ waistband. His hands traveled a seemingly aimless path under the fabric. Groping an ass cheek, running along the inner thigh, paying the penis a friendly, not-too-detailed a visit. But although Jim kept the touching rather chaste, Khan drew in his breath while a noticeable flush crept up his throat.

“I’m sorry, I digress,” Jim said. He tugged at the underwear, letting it slide to the floor at last, and then pulled Khan along until they stood in front of the shower panel. “Let’s go places you’ve never been before.”

“Contrary to what you think, Kirk, I _have_ been in my shower.”

Jim smirked and activated the pulses. “But from the amount of friends you made around here, I suppose you’ve never taken a sonic shower with someone else.”

The waves started caressing Jim’s skin, stimulating it in the fascinating fashion which had never ceased to astound him. He saw Khan close his eyes and Jim decided that whatever reason – a sudden weakness or thorough enjoyment – provided enough incentive to draw him nearer and enfold him in a light embrace.

“It’s best like this,” Jim said and his fingers drew patterns on Khan’s back. “And this.”

Jim nipped along Khan’s ear and throat until Khan turned his head and Jim’s mouth got caught in a kiss that was a lot more demanding than Jim’s tentative exploration had prompted. It was a taste of the raw energy of the former days, when Khan’s hands on his hips meant that bodies collided with the sole intention to create arousal. When the tongue darting through his lips was eagerly mapping its territory, sliding along Jim’s to lure it to ever-changing battlegrounds.

“I don’t want you to die,” Jim whispered, but he was silenced, Khan licking and biting Jim’s words away, abusing his mouth until their lips started to become swollen and Jim’s cock poked into Khan’s hip. A hand wrapping around it meant that the shower’s subtle vibration was increased tenfold, but Jim refused to get carried away. A weakening of the grip told him that he was right, and he held Khan upright when the seizure hit him, gently swaying in the vibrating air that surrounded them.

“Let it end, Kirk.” Khan leaned into Jim’s touch. “There is no purpose for me in this time. The ones I’ve given myself or others have given to me – you know what became of them.” Khan let his chin rest on Jim’s shoulder. “I’m destruction.”

“No, you’re not,” Jim said. “You’re part of my crew.”

He searched for the mouth again, but didn’t succeed, his lips meeting Khan’s throat and jaw because Khan stared ahead. Only the insistent coaxing of Jim’s fingers that ghosted over Khan’s back, increasing the tingling sensation of the shower, seemed to weaken his resolve.

“Just a kiss,” Jim whispered in Khan’s ear. “You shouldn’t get too excited anyway. It’s not good for you.”

He could feel Khan smile. “In that case, you should’ve left my clothes on.”

Khan’s fingers digging into his ass showed that this was a dangerous exercise indeed as until then, Jim had only been confronted with the faintest of stirrings on Khan’s side, the constant pain attacks allowing for a half-hard state at best. But now he was getting more rigid, his erection rubbing along Jim’s, and at the same time, his breathing became faster. Jim felt the muscles tense under his fingers.

“This is too exhausting.” He deactivated the shower. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Also hardly a place I haven’t been to.”

Jim attempted a smirk and succeeded. “I want the dying man to grant me one last wish.”

“You’re confusing things, Kirk.”

 _How does he remain so calm?_ Jim wondered. His own heart sank every time he attempted to continue the light banter. Instead, he wanted to scream and blame the universe for its injustice, and it took all of Jim’s strength to maintain a smile and motion to Khan to follow him to the bedroom. There, Jim threw the pillows and the blanket on a pile at the head of the bed.

“Invalids first,” he said and Khan’s scandalized look made it easier to return a genuine grin. To ensure that there would be no change of mind, Jim immediately straddled Khan’s lap once he had settled on the mattress.

“I’ll do all the work,” Jim said while finding a comfortable position. He shifted experimentally.

Khan huffed out a laugh. “Let’s see how far you get.”

“You know me, always the optimist,” Jim replied, and as effortlessly as before, Khan returned a quiet smile that had an almost fond edge to it now. Before Jim could clearly decipher its significance though, Khan reached out and framed Jim’s face with his hands to pull him down and mashed their mouths together. In the ferocious attack, which was strangely tender at the same time, Jim forgot how to breathe, and he briefly let himself be swept away by the demanding force, gave in to the hands that wandered around his waist, and relished in the sensual play of tongue.

 _But this isn’t what I need,_ repeated through his head. _Not this time._

There were things he had to learn. And do.

“Khan,” he whispered urgently. The strong fingers gliding down his back didn’t let go until Jim broke the kiss completely and drew back. “You’re turning the tables.”

Khan sighed and his hands stilled. “You want me to die of impatience, don’t you?”

“You always struck me as a man who could wait,” Jim said and received a look that would have made anyone else bolt. “It’s just... I need…” he began to explain, but the word didn’t want to be formed. _Closure,_ Jim added mentally.

Would he remember any of this in five years? The broad shoulders, the almost hairless chest? The sensitive nipples?

 _How sensitive exactly?_ He flicked his tongue over one and heard a hiss, a pinch with his fingers elicited a moan. _Very sensitive._

The plane of muscles and skin around the nub was almost unblemished again; the wounds caused by the phaser fire just red traces scattered over his upper body, proof that the dermal regenerator had helped where Khan’s system couldn’t keep up.

 _And all in vain,_ flitted through Jim’s head, but he shoved the thought away while following the dusting of fine dark hair down to where the half-hard penis was lying on the lower belly. Jim gave it a swipe with his tongue and earned a weak twitching.

“I told you, there’s no guarantee for anything,” Khan rasped.

Examining the way Khan’s cock was shaped and the way the glans peeked out of barely any foreskin, Jim wondered if this had been part of the augmentation as well. The edge seemed more pronounced, which would lead to more of the particularly delicate area, wouldn’t it?

Jim licked along the rim and felt the tissue expand. He sucked in the tip completely, enclosed the length with his hand, and it was obvious that his optimism was well-founded. Nosing through the pubic hair that surrounded the base of Khan’s erection, he let his hand catalogue the strong thighs. And the shriveled sac? A tentative lick would show what it could elicit.

Another moan. _That’s it,_ Jim decided. The exploration had to come to an end.

He traced the vein on the underside of the penis, up to the tip to suck it in to his mouth again, and a few moments of rhythmic bobbing produced the intended result.

“Kirk!” Jim felt hands on his head, but he released the cock, ignoring Khan’s indignant growl.

“Sorry, got distracted again.” He slowly lifted himself into a crouch until he was facing Khan again. “It’s time for something new.”

Khan frowned. “This isn’t wise. I told you, I…”

“I said, I’ll do the work,” Jim interrupted him. “Please,” he added. “Just this once.”

 _Don’t make me say it,_ Jim begged inwardly. _Don’t make me use the word ‘goodbye’…_

To end the silence that was lasting too long, Jim groped for the lotion that he knew was still on the bedside table. He didn’t break eye contact, didn’t flinch at Khan’s increasingly angry look, and instead flicked the bottle open.

“Prepare me,” Jim said, but his voice was hoarse. “Or I’ll do it.”

He saw a glint in Khan’s eyes, something that he had experienced before and which had wrecked him in a millisecond each time. Had made Khan breathless for what was to come, like now, when he snatched Jim with one arm to clutch him to his chest so forcefully that Jim felt like a helpless puppet. He supported himself against the wall while his dick pressed into Khan’s neck, but before Jim could process the strangely awkward position, cold liquid trickled down his cleft and in its wake, fingers followed.

Jim relaxed, preparing for the intrusion because Khan wouldn’t be cautious. He knew what to expect.

 _You’re a horndog,_ the two fingers breaching him reminded him. _You can take this and probably more, because for months, you let each stranger with dark hair and sensual lips fuck you into next week._

“Don’t worry, that’s enough,” Jim panted, and pulled back a little. Nothing in the time between their stranding on the desert planet and now had erased the need. Created a memory for the one that wasn’t there or invented a new universe with new partners weaved into it, willing and pliable. Who were everything, everyone, but Khan.

Jim sat back even further and the fingers slid out of him, slowly, as if Khan savored every detail just like Jim. Little impressions, like the way the lotion made his hand slick and how Khan’s length felt coated in it. Khan’s wide eyes when Jim positioned himself, and finally the sting when the large member pushed through the outer ring of muscles.

Jim treasured the rush of lust when he sank down, and the wondrous look Khan gave him fueled it even more.

“My show,” Jim breathed and batted away Khan’s hand. He started to fist himself while he rocked the length in him deeper. “You enjoy.”

Jim watched him breathing, faint gasps just hinting at the significant arousal lurking under the surface, and angling his hips anew, he rode the hardness that he had needed to imprint on him. He gave a brief thought to how wanton he had to look, fucking himself on that glorious dick, bringing himself off in front of a man who kept his eyes fixed on him coming undone.

“Please, Khan,” Jim panted. “Let go.”

Keeping himself on the edge, Jim slowed down his movements, gyrated his hips to aim for that spot inside of him, and when he found it, he was glad Khan lost control after all, lifting his hips to shove his hardness deeper inside, the desperate need a staccato of ragged breaths and slapping flesh. With a relieved exhale, Khan came, his eyes rolling back while his hands shot out to hold Jim steady.

“Kirk,” he gasped, and assured that he wouldn’t miss a stroke, wouldn’t lose the connection although the tremors died down. But Jim hadn’t planned to move away.

“My turn,” he said and straightened, feeling the warmth of Khan’s semen ooze out. This was what he would remember as well, file away with the exhausted smile Khan was giving him – a smile he surely wasn’t aware of – and the fingers still digging into his waist.

Slowly, Jim stroked himself, and Khan’s eyes measured him, taking him in as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Thank you…” Khan began, and in an instant, Jim felt pressure at the back of his head. The small distance between them was bridged, and he would have never anticipated that a kiss could send him over the edge, but this one would, he knew it, he sensed the heat growing too powerful for him to control, no matter how carefully he avoided stimulating the tip.

“Thank you for making me feel alive,” Khan’s lips whispered against his, and at the same time, the hand that had slid between their bodies encircled his fingers and squeezed down hard.

Jim froze, his whole system torn apart between pleasure and devastating anguish, but his body took over, shunning the sorrow the words called forth and instead gave itself over to the storm in his blood. Khan’s soft lips sucked away his breath, making him even more delirious when he jerked into the strong hand, and he came with a shout that was stifled by the demanding mouth. Nothing else could bridle the dazzling bliss that erupted, making the tip of his cock the center of his existence. Skillfully, Khan’s hand extended the shocks, teased out more fluttering of nerve-endings, until Jim thought his system would melt down. But he wouldn’t have stopped if he hadn’t felt the increasingly ragged breath accompanying the kiss.

Jim straightened and mentally shook himself out of sex-induced stupor. Khan didn’t just look spent. He was exhausted, only barely holding on to the flimsy line that linked him to sanity.

“Stay here, I’ll take care of everything,” Jim said. He got up, reluctantly ending their connection, and went to the bathroom. First using a damp towel on himself, he then took one back to Khan to clean him.

“Doctor McCoy misses out on a capable nurse,” Khan remarked when Jim insisted on getting him into pajamas as well.

“I’m the captain,” Jim said. “I know the ropes.”

Khan snorted, but his eyes fell shut.

“Just sleep, okay?” Jim straightened the blanket. “I’ll stay here.”

He switched off the light and listened to Khan’s regular breathing. It sounded…normal somehow. So completely ordinary that Jim succumbed to the exhaustion of the day and let his mind drift off as well, the faint outline of Khan’s profile the last thing he saw.

And when a couple of hours later, he was woken up by strange noises, it was still Khan who he saw first, his mouth forming words, but Jim couldn’t understand any of them.

“Khan?” Jim asked when he had gotten his bearings. He knelt on the mattress and shook Khan carefully, trying to wake him. “Khan!”

An endless stream of incomprehensible sounds – that was all that came from him. Jim clutched him fast, soothing him, talking to him. But there was nothing.

His mind reeling, Jim squeezed his eyes shut. _Don’t say it,_ he thought, but he felt it like a physical need seizing every cell of his body.

“Goodbye,” he whispered in Khan’s hair.


	11. Chapter 11

“It’s good you found him,” Bones said.

Jim just stared ahead. He couldn’t respond; couldn’t tear his eyes away from Khan because it was unbearable to see him like _that_ again – helpless, with machines monitoring him like invisible lifelines that wouldn’t change the inevitable after all.

“Yeah,” he said absentmindedly, only slowly dragging himself out of the black hole whose gravity had been drawing him nearer each moment he spent on sickbay. _I have to_ function, _damn it!_ he reprimanded himself. “When Khan was repairing communications, he kept having pretty severe fits. So later, I thought I’d better check on him.”

 _What a smooth lie._ Getting rid of the traces of their activities had still felt like betrayal, yet when Jim opened the door to Khan’s quarters with his code before he called Bones, the amount of deceit had already reached such levels that it had a ring of normalcy to it.

“Quite considerate of you,” Bones said, subdued anger in his voice which made Jim listen more attentively. “For someone who didn’t have any qualms waking him up and putting him in danger in the first place.”

“My first concern was the crew,” Jim retorted and Bones just huffed. Briefly, Jim was inclined to appease him. Explain himself a little more, drop a hint of the emotional dimensions of the whole story. But what for? It wouldn’t change anything. “If we were on Earth…,” Jim went on, “could we save him?”

“You heard Spock,” Bones said. “Human medicine obviously can’t keep up with the Vulcan way to make you a vegetable. And I modified the instruments to have another go, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing!”

Bones’ disbelief was surely accompanied by intense frowning, but Jim didn’t look up. His dejection had enough to feed on.

“Keep me briefed,” he said and turned toward the door.

“I will,” he heard when he crossed the threshold, but he didn’t acknowledge Bones, just as he didn’t pay the multiple salutes on the bridge much heed. He wanted _out_ , wanted to be someplace where he could tackle the grief that threatened to overcome him. All those expectations, the need to interact, the responsibility... They were mere distractions.

 _It could be happening now, at this moment,_ Jim thought and his vision clouded. _Khan could be..._

“Captain?” Spock beckoned him over to the science station and Jim’s mind cleared a little. “I closely examined the particles of mist,” Spock explained. “They seem to reflect the emissions of the planet, and when the probes and the ship approached the surface, the effect increased exponentially.”

“Did you tell Scotty?” Jim asked, focusing on the screen in front of him. Thank god, something was happening that didn’t demand his presence or input.

“As soon as I had finished my calculations, I sent the results to Mr. Scott. I expect him to–”

 _“Captain?”_ the communicator announced Scotty’s voice.

“I’m on the bridge,” Jim answered. “Can’t wait to hear the good news.”

 _“Not a problem this time!”_ Scotty exclaimed excitedly. _“Once Spock sent me his analysis, it was easy to add some of the shuttle’s technology to the Enterprise and work in a little extra that I thought of.”_

“Ingenious, as always,” Jim remarked.

 _“Well, at least I didn’t wreck the engines, like_ you _did,”_ Scotty replied. _“What the hell did you do with the shuttle? It’s almost ruined because of…rubble?”_

Spock looked at Jim curiously.

“Khan modified propulsion so that we had an energy source,” Jim explained.

 _“Modified it by stuffing dirt into it, which, by the way, ate all the relays,”_ Scotty amended. _“But I’ll have the engine replaced. Scott out.”_

The salute died on Jim’s lips because he knew that Scotty had surely started to do whatever he deemed most important on his list.

“When this state of emergency is over, I will examine the samples you brought from the surface,” Spock mused. “They seem to have some fascinating properties.”

Inconspicuously clenching his fists, Jim tried to muster a neutral façade, but he felt it starting to crumble the moment he thought he had succeeded.

“Yeah, fascinating,” Jim mimicked without much enthusiasm. “And you mean _if_ we manage to escape the mess we’re in.”

“We’ve evaded a direct conflict until now,” Spock pointed out.

“Apart from the fact that we destroyed a Klingon ship?” Jim gave a laugh that even sounded ugly to his own ears.

“We are not responsible for this incident.”

Jim couldn’t believe Spock’s composure. Even a Vulcan had to see what kind of hopeless situation they were in. “I wonder who’s going to look at the details when everything comes crashing down on us,” he muttered.

“Starfleet Command…” Spock began.

“Starfleet Command is infiltrated by god knows how many accomplices of De Luca!” Jim turned around and started pacing the bridge.

“That doesn’t mean that they’ve already got the upper hand,” Uhura threw in.

“They put a saboteur on the Enterprise!” Jim shouted. “ _One_ that we _know_ of! There could be plenty more, disassembling the ship right under our asses!” He felt a hand on his shoulder, but wrenched himself free before Sulu had a chance of grabbing him more firmly. “They’re…everywhere! Those people knew the Klingons would be here and they made sure we walked into whatever trap this is. And I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on!”

“Captain.” Spock’s voice directed Jim’s attention toward the door. “May I speak to you? In a more private setting?”

As if someone was pulling him along by an invisible string, Jim stomped after his first officer until they arrived in the empty officers’ lounge.

“What is it?” Jim asked, irritated.

“Nothing. I just judged that it would be a good idea to put a stop to your…rant.”

Deflating to the degree that he felt compelled to sit down on the large table, Jim calmed his racing pulse. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.”

His smile was not returned, though, not even with the tiniest inclination of the head. Instead, Spock studied him even more intently, the critical eyes almost narrowing to slits.

“What?” Jim blurted out. He refused to feel self-conscious under the stare, but he couldn’t help it. “Let’s just go back to the bridge, all right?” Before he had a chance to get up, Spock briefly pressed his hand on his shoulder and kept him in place.

“Captain,” Spock implored. “If I were you, I would not return immediately.”

“You think I’m not fit to command this ship anymore? You want to relieve me?” Jim bristled, but wished he could take back his words the moment he had uttered them because he knew they missed the mark. It was clear what Spck was trying to achieve.

“No, I would suggest you take your time to come to terms with certain _circumstances_ ,” Spock said calmly, and Jim couldn’t withstand the concerned look. He trained his eyes on the floor, wishing that he wasn’t such an open book to Spock.

“I can’t just sit in my quarters and wait,” Jim whispered. “I…can’t.” Biting his lips, he grappled for the right words. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. Everything about it is wrong…has been from the beginning.”

“You should not underrate the physical reaction that resulted from the transfusion,” Spock said, and Jim needed a moment to understand what he was referring to. Of course, the mind meld had shown Spock everything. _In all its glorious detail…_

“It was as if someone had opened a door,” Jim tried to explain. “The blood’s effect vanished, but the door wouldn’t close again.”

Dejectedly, Jim tried to gather the courage to face Spock. This was his best friend, damn it!  

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jim said and raised his head. “I stand by my decisions. What I… What we had… It’s _not_ what’s making me angry.” He stood up so he could look Spock square in the eye. “That he’s dying…” Jim paused to inhale deeply. “ _We_ did this to him, Spock. Starfleet did this. Used him, blackmailed him, hurt him. He was right. We’re not better.”

“It is not Starfleet–” Spock started.

“Yes, it is!” Jim interjected. “Marcus wasn’t acting alone. Just imagine the number of people involved in those projects! I didn’t get half of what was going on during the trial because there were things I didn’t want to see. All I wanted was getting back a functioning ship and escape all of this. As if that would be possible!”

“How could you have known–?”

“Of course I couldn’t have _known_!” Jim exclaimed. “But what if I had kept close contact with Khan during the trial and afterward? Would they have gotten their hands on him in this case? I closed my eyes because it was convenient for me at that time! Because I was a coward!”

“No, Jim, stop!” Spock spoke matter-of-factly, but with a finality that shut Jim up for good. Being addressed by Spock by his first name was still a rare occurrence. “You acted like a captain, and this also includes the fact that you were mindful of your career.”

“My career!” Jim snorted. “I would give what’s left of my fucking career in a heartbeat if I could save Khan!”

“So if you could make the decision again, you would sacrifice your life’s goal of being a captain?” Spock asked.

“A small sacrifice in contrast to Khan’s, don’t you think?”

The question lingered in the air when silence descended upon them, and Jim’s attempt to read Spock’s face didn’t reveal a reaction. If anything, Spock appeared to be even more closed-off than ever, although something seemed to be preoccupying him.

“Spock?” Jim asked, but received no answer. “What’s wrong?”

Finally, Spock blinked, establishing a connection with the outside world again.

“Khan doesn’t have to die,” he said slowly. “I could make an attempt to extract the memory and restore his brain’s function.”

For a moment, Jim’s breathing faltered and all he could do was stare at Spock incredulously. “What?” he pressed out eventually.

“That I am familiar with this ancient torture although it is not recorded in any database stems from my studies in Vulcan’s rather inglorious past.” He paused and looked away. “This is when I came across this weapon and its…cure.”

“And you’re telling me this now?” Jim shouted, but then stopped himself before his rage got the better of him. Spock wouldn’t let him suffer like that. Not without a good reason. “What’s the catch?”

Spock compressed his lips and clearly didn’t want to elaborate on the subject. So there really _was_ a catch!

“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?” Jim asked, and Spock nodded gravely. “What does that mean? He gets brain-damaged? Or you as well?”

Another nod, then Spock cleared his throat. “Chances are one to five for Khan.”

“Five to one against him, you mean,” Jim clarified, more to himself. “And you? What are the odds against you?”

“As you like to put it: about fifty-fifty,” Spock said. “Although in exact numbers it’s–” 

“No,” Jim interrupted him, but nothing else came out of his mouth because the thought of risking Spock’s life made him sick. _I nearly lost him because of Khan… If it happens again…_ “Please, Spock, I can’t…” he rasped.

“If there is still a chance to prove that a conspiracy is behind recent events, Khan will be an invaluable witness,” Spock reasoned, but Jim shook his head.

“No, I don’t allow it,” he ground out. “Captain’s orders.”

Spock inclined his head, giving Jim the look he hated so much because it reminded him of the other people who had used it on him; people who had thought they _meant_ well, but all they did was make him aware of his inadequacies.

“Jim. The risk is calculable.” Now it was _Jim_ again. Spock was really trying to push all the buttons. “What if I asked you as a friend and not as your first officer?”

Jim heaved a sigh. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Isn’t this what you would expect of a friend?” Spock asked, a little wonderingly. “Help you out in a time of need?”

“Yes, but friends don’t leave each other behind!” Jim grabbed Spock’s arm. “Don’t...Without you, I don’t know how to get through this!”

“You will be fine. You are–”

“Don’t make me!” Jim implored. “This _choice_...I...I can’t…”

Spock narrowed eyes before he nodded gravely. Bewildered, Jim let go of him, unable to grasp what the other man was intending to convey, but instead of giving Jim an explanation, Spock just headed for the door.

“Hey… What are you…? Spock!” Jim shouted and jogged after him, too slowly though, because the turbolift’s doors closed in Jim’s face. A terrible idea crossed his mind, and the seconds ticking by until the next lift arrived gnawed at his sanity. “Computer? Locate Commander Spock!”

 _“Commander Spock is in sickbay,”_ was the answer, confirming Jim’s dread.

“Take me there!” he ordered. It was impossible! Spock wouldn’t act against a direct order, would he? Yet Jim could already hear Bones’ voice shouting abuse through the closed doors of the ward, and on entering, he saw Spock deactivating some of the machines and pulling Khan up to sit. 

“Prepare to use emergency medical procedures,” Spock said and Bones’ eyes widened in horror.

“What the hell…?” he blurted out the same instant Spock laid his fingers on Khan’s temple.

“No!” Jim rushed to the bed, but clashed with Bones’ massive body before he could reach Spock.

“Jim! You can’t interrupt this now! It would hurt them both!”

Desperately, Jim strained against the strong arms holding him back. “Hurt?” he shouted. “If we don’t stop this, they’re lost!”

“Bullshit, Jim! A mind meld won’t–”

“This is not a normal mind meld, Bones!” Jim felt his strength seep out of him and what had been an attempt to restrain him became a welcome support. Exhausted, he let Bones take over most of the work of keeping him on his feet.

“Jim? Are you all right?” Bones shook him. “Talk to me, goddammit!” Deciding that Jim was stable enough again, he grabbed a tricorder and performed some checks. “Okay, your cortisol levels are going through the roof, but that’s about it.” He focused his attention on the two other men. “I can’t even fathom what’s messing up _their_ systems. Jim! Care to give me some insight already?” he barked.

“Spock knows a way to fix Khan’s brain,” Jim whispered. “But it’s not without risk.”

Bones froze and turned his head to glower at Jim. “You told him to do this?”

“Of course I didn’t!” Jim rubbed his forehead and then breathed in through his folded hands. How could he explain something that he himself didn’t fully understand? “He just…went ahead with it.”

“And what do we do? Wait until one of them has turned his brain into mush?”

“Both,” Jim muttered, and Bones fell silent. “It could happen to _both_ of them.”

Strung out to breaking point, they watched the two men in their strange embrace. Spock had clutched Khan to his chest so tightly that it looked almost affectionate had it not been for the deep frown on his face and the fingers that started to cramp.

“It’s taking a lot out of him,” Bones whispered. “I wonder if he–”

Not finishing his sentence, Bones lurched forward and Jim followed him instinctively. They both caught Spock before he sagged to the floor when he slid off the bed unconscious.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jim asked. They dragged him to another bed to lay him down.

“This has obviously short-circuited his system,” Bones threw back. He scanned Spock’s unmoving form with a tricorder. “I can’t find anything unusual, but hell, that doesn’t mean much nowadays, does it?” He shot Jim a frustrated glance before he rushed over to Khan to perform the same examination. Jim was about to follow him when he heard a small grunt.

“Spock?” he asked, and to his great relief, the Vulcan opened his eyes. “Are you all right? Can you speak? Spock!”

“I would be thankful if you…didn’t record this incident in any of the logs,” was the weak reply, and Bones snorted.

“Damn, he’s up and his old self immediately.”

“Alter the logs because you disregarded a direct order to save someone?” Jim asked with a grin.

“It has a familiar ring to it, I’m aware of that, Captain,” Spock admitted and propped himself up. “Do not feel obliged to follow my request.”

“So…although you sold my ass to Starfleet after I pulled you out of a volcano, you now want me to help you keep a clean slate?” Jim asked in mock seriousness.

“It would provide an excellent source of jibes at my expense,” Spock answered in the same tone.

“I’m not sure that you’re not brain damaged after all. You seem to have developed a rudimentary sense of humor,” Bones said and approached for another scan. “But you seem to be all right. I would like to keep you here, though.”

“If you don’t mind, Doctor, I would prefer to go to my quarters to meditate.” Spock stood up, remarkably steady on his feet.

“I’ll accompany him, okay?” Jim offered when Bones’ skeptical look didn’t soften.

“All right.” Continuing his frown, Bones attended to Khan again, and Jim wanted to bombard him with questions about Khan’s state of health.

 _Not now!_ he reminded himself and set himself in motion to keep up with Spock. There was something else he needed to know first, although it wouldn’t be easy to penetrate Spock’s shell.

“How do you feel?” Jim asked when they reached Spock’s quarters.

“Exhausted.” Spock opened the door and Jim followed him. There, in the awkward silence of the sparsely furnished room, he frantically searched for the words that would answer at least a fraction of the myriad of questions he had.

“You defied my orders,” he began and could have kicked himself for the clumsy approach.

“That is correct,” Spock declared.

“I would’ve never expected that of you.” _At least the direction’s clear now,_ Jim thought.

“It is my duty as first officer to take decisions my superior can’t because of…personal interests.”

“Risking your life wasn’t logical, regardless,” Jim countered.

“We need his intelligence, his knowledge of the enemy.” The arguments sounded almost defensive.

“You saw all of that during the first mind meld,” Jim maintained. “What could he possibly add to our cause now?”

“His strategic mind,” Spock said curtly. He lit a candle, obviously trying to make Jim feel even more like an intruder.

“But that doesn’t explain it!” Jim grabbed Spock’s upper arms and prevented him from sitting down.

“Your curiosity is misplaced here.”

Trying to keep himself from seeing red, Jim inhaled. It didn’t calm him down, though. “I’ve had it with the secrets on this ship!” He shook Spock vigorously, but could only produce a light swaying of the Vulcan. “Please, Spock! Why did you risk leaving me alone in the middle of a chaos like this? I don’t get it!”

Spock looked Jim straight in the eye. “There are certain aspects of this situation I thought worth preserving.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Jim.

“Khan’s mind…” Spock started and then guilt settled on his face. “It was less straightforward than I thought. Detecting the information I needed required a lot of effort.”

Jim let go of Spock and took a step back. “Why? Was it because of the damage they had done to his brain?”

“No, it was because his thoughts never fully occupied themselves with just one task. There was always a factor that came into play, regardless of the situation.” Spock paused before visibly forcing out the next words. “Everything, without exception, was about _you_.”

Speechless, Jim tried to grasp what Spock of all people was talking about.

“In the interest of professional distance, I should have ignored all of this, and I succeeded at the beginning,” Spock continued. “But those thoughts were dominating his mind to such a degree that it proved impossible.”

“I’m…I…” Jim stuttered.

“This parameter does not excuse my actions, of course. But the influence it had might be taken into consideration when you judge the severity of my insubordination.”

Jim stared in disbelief. He had to say something that at least partly expressed the enormity of this revelation for him. Or his gratitude. But nothing that came to his mind would meet the Vulcan standards of adequate behavior, so he just let the smile that had been lingering light up his face at last.

“Thank you,” Jim croaked.

“There’s no reason to thank me as yet,” Spock said soberly. “It is still unclear if the treatment showed the desired effects. So I suggest you return to sickbay immediately.”

 _Vulcan sympathy’s a curious thing_ , Jim assessed. It sounded like the ultimate rebuttal, but each tiny gesture could express more warmth than a bucketful of well-intentioned words.

“Thank you,” Jim whispered again, and Spock gave an accepting nod, dismissing him at the same time. Resolutely, Jim suppressed another urge to do something as unbecoming as embracing Spock, and instead hurried out of the quarters. Despite Spock’s skepticism, the hope that Jim had refused to acknowledge until now bubbled up in him.

“Back already?” Bones asked, utterly bewildered. A pang of regret shot through Jim, and the need to reveal the truth became almost overwhelming.

 _Not the time,_ he thought to himself. “If the cure worked, Khan’s expertise will be needed immediately,” he explained and pulled a stool over to Khan’s bed. Glancing over at Bones first, and making sure he was occupied with the evaluation of data or something, Jim then allowed himself to look at Khan.

He appeared quiet and peaceful again, like during the times he had surrendered to Jim’s embrace. The hair was wild, tangled locks giving evidence of the…lively…night.

Jim smiled, reveling in the memories of their encounter. His hands twitched, wanting to continue the path of exploration and to revisit the places they had accounted for already.

 _Just an inconspicuous touch_ , Jim thought. _Perhaps Bones won’t realize it when I cup the chin? Feel the forehead?_

He was just about to reach out when Khan’s eyes suddenly snapped open. Attentively taking in their surroundings, they settled on Jim at last, challenging his restraint once more because now, with the intelligent gaze back again, it was clear that Spock’s intervention had worked.

 _He’s back!_ Jim rejoiced inwardly. _He’s–_

“How much time has passed?” Khan asked and sat up abruptly.

“Nine hours,” Jim replied.

“Hey, stay where you are, you hear me?” Bones had finally gotten wind of the new situation and hastened over to point his tricorder at Khan. Not taking his eyes off Jim, Khan got up.

“You need to convene a meeting with your command crew,” Khan declared. “Tell them to gather on the bridge.”


	12. Chapter 12

“Anything from the stations?” Khan asked, and Uhura shook her head.

“No,” she answered curtly, her face giving away just a hint of the rage she was feeling. Jim could practically see it simmering under the surface, threatening to burst forth once Khan so much as twitched in Spock’s direction.

Khan seemed unperturbed, though, turning toward Scotty. “How long will the shields hold?”

“As long as we need them to.” Immensely pleased by Khan’s surprise, Scotty crossed his arms over his chest. “But the last time I checked, we wanted to get _out_ of the mist, not stay in it indefinitely.”

“The question is what’s waiting for us outside,” Chekov supplied.

“Ha, I know what!” Scotty exclaimed. “A bunch of Klingons in a filthy mood.”

“I think we can all agree on that,” Khan said and fixed the large screen with his gaze. For at least a minute, he stared at the impenetrable mist which had been the only view for almost a day now. “In order to prevent them from destroying the _Enterprise_ , we have to find out what they want,” he muttered to himself.

“Well, they made it clear that they don’t want us in the vicinity of the planet,” Jim said. He eyed his chair warily, but couldn’t bring himself to sit down. The memory of the strange feeling it had given him last time was still too fresh on his mind. So he started to pursue an invisible path along the stations of the bridge.

“The Trasol system does not belong to the Klingon Empire, nor have the Klingons ever staged a claim on it,” Spock explained. “Which does not mean that this isn’t still their agenda.”

“The planet’s rather far away from trade routes,” Sulu said. “And strategically, it’s worthless.”

“Then its worth must lie elsewhere,” Khan mused.

“It can’t be the fact that Trasmo V might be used as an energy source, right?” Scotty asked. “I mean, it destroyed the engines.”

“The Klingons don’t know that,” Khan gave back. “This particular aspect only transpired recently.”

“But if they’re after the rocks, how did they know about them in the first place?” Jim asked. “There had only been a Vulcan expedition once, and even they weren’t able to get a probe through the mist, were they?”

An uncomfortable silence put an end to the animated exchange of ideas. Everyone was suddenly straining _not_ to look at Spock.

 _What are the odds that the torture inflicted on Khan was also Vulcan?_ Jim thought to himself.

“We don’t have reliable data on this topic, so let us continue to the next question,” Khan said to everyone’s relief. “How is it that the _Enterprise_ ended up right here, at this exact moment?”

“We’re on a five-year research mission,” Jim said. “And on our way, our first…”

“…destination was Trasmo V, a miniscule planet in an unimportant system far away from the original route,” Khan finished, and Jim compressed his lips. It hadn’t occurred to him to question the course. Not for once. He had been so keen on leaving that he had accepted anything, as long as it was far away from Earth. “Who decided that Trasmo V was worth the energy to examine it?” Khan asked.

“The orders appeared to have come directly from the Federation’s science branch.” Spock’s choice of words made cold sweat break out on Jim’s neck. No one had ever checked if this was the case.

“And why the hurry before the start?” Khan asked. “It almost seemed as if there was a deadline to meet.”

“Damn right!” Scotty shouted. “I worked more double shifts in a fortnight than all the months before!”

“But time was running out regardless,” Khan continued. “And perhaps they didn’t consider me at first. Only when their plans were close to failing, I came into play. It was imperative that you reached the planet, and there wasn’t enough time to outfit the shuttle and the sensors – technology which would increase the threat you were posing.”

“Sure, without it, they would’ve just smuggled a different traitor on the _Enterprise_ to do your work of cutting off communication and activating the weapons,” Uhura finished. Hesitantly, Khan gave a little nod.

“So they – or should I say Marcus’s group – want this mission to fail and start a war with the Klingons,” Jim summed up. “But why the hell would they do that? It could throw the Federation back fifty years or more!”

“And what would be the effect?” Khan asked.

“No deep space missions, a constant threat, battles, fear, losses, armament…” Scotty listed immediately.

“Exactly,” Khan affirmed. “And behind whom would everyone rally when a strong enemy attacks? The peacemakers?”

Everyone looked stricken.

“I’ll be damned if the _Enterprise_ provides the reason to plunge us into a conflict like that,” Jim growled. “We need to get out here and do something before backup arrives. If we’re not around, then Starfleet will probably assume the worst and attack the Klingons.”

Expectantly, he looked at Khan, but just saw him massaging his temples. For a moment, Jim thought that the pain had come back.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes, yes,” Khan said absentmindedly, obviously surprised that this was the case. He blinked and straightened. “It is…erm, it is necessary to convince the Klingons that they’re not fighting for something valuable, but if we give them the rocks we collected, they’ll find out that they contain energy.”

“Not necessarily,” Jim replied. “Khan, Spock? We go down to the labs. Sulu, you’ve got the bridge.”

Jim didn’t look back when he left the room, and as quickly as he rushed to the turbolift, he hadn’t expected the other two being able to keep up with – so when they joined him in the confined room, waiting for the few seconds of the voyage to end, he wished they hadn’t managed to close in on him.

“There’s a thing I forgot to mention in my log,” Jim remarked to break the silence, wincing the moment he said it. “Something I found out about the asteroids,” he added quickly because he could already feel two sets of eyes boring into his back.

 _Brilliant. Foot in mouth brought to perfection,_ he thought to himself when he escaped the lift. Grabbing a PADD and checking the inventory of the geology lab provided a good distraction, and he outright enjoyed the curious gazes of Spock and Khan when he dragged a container of the samples he had brought back from Trasmo V toward them.

“I dunno if it works,” he said and placed one of the rocks on the counter, next to one of the bowls. “But I guess if they’re used to taking the form of asteroids, their current shape must annoy them considerably.”

Jim wished he could catch the astonished looks on camera. The metal bowl slowly lost its outline, the reflecting surface turning into something dull until it met the gray and porous quality of the rock, and the two other men just gaped at the display incredulously.

“What about the atomic composition?” Spock asked, but grabbed a tricorder to answer the question himself. “This is a perfect copy. The radiation is lacking, though.”

“I thought it would,” Jim said and grinned. “It’s the perfect ploy, isn’t it?”

Spock arched an eyebrow. “I understand now why you did not ask Dr. McCoy to come with us,” he said, and Jim narrowed his eyes.

“What does he have to do with this?” he asked defensively although he knew what would follow.

“The doctor would surely object,” Spock noted _. And I’m also surprised you’d even consider such a plan._ Jim heard the words although Spock didn’t say them.

“You have to see the bigger picture, Spock,” Jim retorted, but flinched at his own words.

“No matter if they are sentient beings?” Spock asked.

“Do I have to recite your own philosophy to you? This is about the needs of the _many_ , Spock!” Jim spat. He put the asteroid into the container. “And I won’t let an opportunity to prevent this war pass!”

“We don’t know if it’s the planet they are out for,” Khan interjected, and it almost sounded as if he wanted to ease the tension.

“Well, if it’s not, everyone’s conscience is still clear,” Jim scoffed.  

“No, then you will put the _Enterprise_ in a lot of danger,” Khan pointed out. “With nothing to offer as a bargain.”

“And what do you suggest? We stay here like trapped rats?”

Khan shook his head and tapped his communicator. “Mr. Scott? What’s the state of repair of the shuttle?”

 _“It’s finished…Why?”_ Scotty asked.

“We will need it soon.”

Without any further explanation, Khan turned around and left the lab. Torn between running after him and staying with Spock, Jim threw Spock a helpless glance.

“I will return to my post on the bridge – if you need me,” Spock offered, and gratefully, Jim sped after Khan.

“Computer?” he shouted. “Return turbolift to geology. Authorization Kirk, delta alpha five-two-five.”

_“Turbolift has returned to its starting point.”_

“Great,” Jim said, and at the same time, the doors opened, revealing a clearly displeased Khan.

“There’s no need to accompany me,” he barked. “I will keep you briefed.”

“You’re not going on a reconnaissance mission, are you?” Jim asked and entered.

“Turbolift to shuttlebay two,” Khan said instead of answering Jim. “What’s more interesting is how you made the pain go away.”

“It was Spock.”

“Give him my thanks,” Khan said, still facing the door. When it opened, he marched down the corridor, Jim sticking to his heels.

“Stop changing the subject, okay?” he demanded. “I want to know what you’re up to! Hell, I’m also your captain, you hear me?”

The small smile elicited by those words vanished when they reached the shuttlebay.

“Evacuate this area!” Khan shouted to an ensign who was sorting her tools. Alarmed, she looked up and at a wave of Jim’s hand, she hurried out of the hangar. “This applies to you as well, Kirk!”

Yet Jim didn’t let himself be thrown off and climbed into the shuttle behind Khan. Before he could proceed to the helm, Jim grabbed his shirt, but Khan didn’t hesitate to start the initialization of the shuttle – now with the help of the display in the back.

“Don’t worry,” he muttered. “I’ll program the shuttle to self-destruct before I exceed the distance that kills me.”

“Kill you?” Jim needed a moment to understand what the other man was talking about. “Khan! Listen to me. You don’t have to worry about the devices in your back!”

His fingers freezing in their movement, Khan interrupted his work and flashed his eyes at Jim.

“So I have your attention at last.” Jim sighed. “Those cloaking devices inside of you? They didn’t do anything. The botched memory kept you under control.”

Dumbfounded, Khan let his arm sink.

“It’s a forbidden Vulcan technique,” Jim explained and Khan huffed out a condescending laugh.

“And there I was admiring Starfleet’s ingenuity.” He shrugged. “It’s of no importance. In fact, creating a decoy will be easier.”

Jim felt his throat constrict. Rooted to the spot, he watched Khan finish the procedure.

 _Dedicated. Alert. Almost as if he was on duty,_ Jim thought, but then Khan briefly worried his lower lip with his teeth. _And human._

“Please...” Jim entreated. “Don’t go.”

Khan continued to stare at the control panels. “There’s no place for me here, Kirk,” he ground out. “Even you and your thick skull should have realized that by now.”

“And what change do you think this makes?” Jim asked quietly. He reached out with his other hand and clutched Khan’s wrist.

Still directing his gaze at the display, Khan inhaled. “Don’t tempt me, Kirk,” he growled. “You managed that once. I won’t fall for it again.”

“Don’t say that. Not even in joking.” Jim didn’t try to mask the hurt in his voice because now it would become clear if Spock had purposely exaggerated.

 _Everything was about you,_ Spock’s voice resounded in Jim’s mind when Khan finally raised his head. In the auxiliary light of the shuttle, the astonishing clarity of the eyes was drowned in the shadows, but Jim could still feel their gaze capturing all of him, each inch of his body and every impulse of his being.

“Please, don’t go. I’m sure we can find a way,” Jim whispered before the demanding mouth shut him up, gently compelling him to open up to it. The tongue licked a path through his lips to find new places to explore, and it was almost as dexterous as the hands that started to wander down Jim’s back.

“Still the incorrigible optimist,” Khan rasped and resumed the kiss, licking and nipping each crevice of Jim’s mouth until Jim couldn’t breathe anymore. Eagerly, he mirrored the searching fingers, but he couldn’t match Khan’s force and just let his mouth be captured and his body be pushed into the shuttle’s instruments.

“I also wouldn’t care if they sent me to a penal colony,” Jim panted and when the hands grabbed his ass, digging into the muscle to pull him nearer, he felt his blood rush to his groin.

“They can try,” Khan said. He stilled his movements. “But I’d find you, Captain.”

Jim kept his eyes closed. It felt curiously exhilarating – hearing Khan’s voice utter the title without any malice or contempt. Almost like a term of endearment.

“The shuttle’s ready,” Khan said, ripping Jim out of his musings, but Khan’s half-hearted attempt at disentangling himself was belied by the hand still combing through Jim’s hair.

 _Too good to give it up,_ Jim decided. Just like the fierce embrace, the pleasurable rubbing of their bodies which were starting to speak their own language again. Yet when a warm forehead rested on his and prompted Jim to open his eyes at last, he had to accept the blurred reality.

“Don’t make this harder on us than it has to be,” Khan said. “This isn’t different from the last time.”

“It’s different when you really _know_ what you’ll lose,” Jim whispered and swallowed against the lump in his throat.

Khan looked at Jim questioningly before his expression finally clouded. “The Vulcan,” he pressed out, and seemed to struggle with the conclusion, reaching the point when he appeared ready to lash out. Jim’s adrenalin soared.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…” he started, his whole body programmed on flight, and when a hand suddenly cradled his face and Khan bridged the gap between them to touch upon Jim’s lips, he was taken completely off guard. A tender caress, nothing more, disarming Jim to the degree that he didn’t even realize that Khan had freed himself.

“Then you know why I have to do this,” Khan said and quirked one of his small genuine smiles.

Jim exhaled and his shoulders sagged. With a heavy heart, he stepped back and forced himself to retreat out of the shuttle. The ramp rose, shielding Khan from view, and only his training ensured that Jim went to the control panel to clear the flight. Yet his fingers were numb, just like the rest of his body, and the feeling increased tenfold when the shuttle lifted off and aimed toward the opening gate.

 _Make this step count!_ Jim reminded himself, and thankfully, his feet obeyed him again and carried him toward the turbolift. There was no time for hesitation. Not now!

“Sulu? Battle stations!” he shouted into his communicator. “I’ll be on the bridge in a few seconds.”

_“Aye, Captain.”_

“And Uhura? Prepare to send messages of peace in Klingon on all frequencies!”

_“I’ll have a sequence ready when you arrive.”_

“Over and out.”

In the lift, Jim inhaled through his teeth and tried to pull himself together. This was his chance to make a difference – _Khan’s chance!_ – and he wouldn’t make a mistake now, even if his blood felt like it was congealing in his veins, threatening to shut his whole system down.

“Engage engines and get us out of here!” he barked the moment he entered the bridge. Grimly determined, he sat down in his seat.

“Should we follow the last coordinates of the shuttle?” Spock asked.

“No. Set a course that has us leave the mist eight hundred kilometers away from it,” Jim answered. “Khan’s the decoy. Let’s hope it works.”

He anxiously watched his display and the large screen, waiting for the mist to clear.

 _Perhaps he has already managed to establish contact with the Klingons,_ Jim thought to himself. _In that case we can–_

His eyes flitted to the display. Had that been a flash on the screen? Something had been lighting up behind the mist, hadn’t it? Before he could come to a conclusion, the _Enterprise_ was shooting out of the clouds and was hit by something with such force that Jim could barely cling to his seat long enough for the belts to secure him.

“We were hit by phaser fire,” Sulu declared, but everyone was already staring at the screen where the origin of the attack transpired with terrifying vividness. A heavy battle was going on between at least a dozen ships, with the Klingons clearly outnumbering Starfleet. 

Petrified, Jim watched the scene unfold. _Everything had been in vain,_ darted through his mind, and he automatically checked the sensors. No shuttle – just a lot of debris floating through space.

“You might want to engage with the fleet, Captain,” he heard Sulu say. “What are we waiting for?”

Jim felt anger grip him with such violence that his whole body began to tremble. _God, Marcus, you fucking bastard! May your ashes be damned to hell!_

“I’m still not sure which side to choose,” Jim hissed under his breath.

Another hit shook the _Enterprise_ and the computer announced a decrease of the shield function. Feeling all eyes of his officers on him, Jim balled his hands into fists.

“Open fire on the Klingons!” he shouted.


	13. Epilogue

_It’s Spock,_ Jim registered, but even this realization couldn’t bring him to look away from the large window of the observation deck. He was aware of the fact that by now, his staring had surely transgressed the border from _slightly wistful_ to _downright strange_ , and scanning the blackness, hoping for a tiny dot that might be the lights of a shuttle wouldn’t lead to anything – especially not light years away from the scene of the battle.

Jim inhaled. Spock’s presence might make things bearable, or at least serve as a reminder that the events hadn’t been figments of his mind. This time it would be impossible to deny the whole episode because there was someone who knew about it. Someone who had witnessed everything.

Spock cleared his throat to call attention to himself. “The repair teams report that the damage threatening our speedy return to Earth has been repaired.”

“You mean threatening our cowardly flight from the Trasol system,” Jim corrected him.

“A strategic withdrawal was our only option, Captain. With Klingon backup arriving at such speed, our chances of  victory were greatly reduced.”

Jim sighed. Blood had also been spilled in other parts of the universe. A Federation outpost had been attacked – presumably in retaliation for the _Enterprise_ ’s aggression – and news of the deaths of at least two hundred people had prompted minor battles to flare up everywhere near the border.

 _How can things go south so quickly?_ Jim wondered. Communication was restricted, and he had just received a single message from the newly formed emergency military council.

_A fucking military council!_

Defeated, Jim sat down at the table he had occupied for most of his time off duty – the time Bones had ordered him to take.

“Do you think they’re evacuating the smaller colonies?” Jim asked.

“Only those without significant weaponry. Those which would not be able to defend themselves,” Spock replied. “As all ships are being recalled, Starfleet’s resources can’t achieve more than that.”

_And then? Assemble to form a fleet. Devise a strategy for war._

_War…_ Jim took a water bottle from a neighboring table and pushed it towards the PADD in front of him. Slowly, the flat device lost its form and rose up, imitating the object next to it.

 _That’s all that remains,_ he thought to himself. The asteroids were all that was left of the big plans. They were the first and the last bit of the Enterprise’s quest.

Now there wouldn’t be any deep space missions anymore. Marcus had won even though he was dead.

_Making sure that nothing would be the same. Nothing._

“Do you think they’ll believe us?” Jim asked and Spock sat down opposite him. “That we were just part of a setup?”

“If we find someone who will listen,” Spock said. “With the political changes already underway and the deaths at the frontiers, the chance of that decreases by each day we need for our return.”

The asteroid had reached its final stage, a perfect twin of the blue bottle, even down to the golden brim.

“What makes me so angry is that we couldn’t do a damn thing about it,” Jim said and traced his fingers along the glass. “That we took all the shit at face value.”

“A number of factors acted against us. It was highly unlikely that we survived at all.”

Jim saw his hand starting to shake. “Not all of us did,” he said, and his throat constricted.

“It is possible that he escaped,” Spock pointed out. “There was no sign of the shuttle in the debris.”

“Yeah…” Jim said slowly. “As far as we were able to scan all those scattered remains before we had to bolt.”

“He could have hid in the mist and waited until the battle was over.”

Jim looked up and huffed out a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t make a difference anyway. Because he won’t come back. He knows what’s waiting for him. And he sure as hell doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Spock arched an eyebrow. “But if he survived, he is free.”

Jim stopped toying with the bottle and thought about those words for a moment. “Yeah, at least more than he had ever been in the last few hundred years,” he muttered. “And what about _us_? Will they court-martial us in case the tide turned against us on our return?”

“The most logical course of action would be to ignore any report we filed,” Spock said. “The _Enterpris_ e will only be one of many ships arriving back, and as we are experienced officers, the council will try to secure our service in the fleet.” Spock narrowed his eyes. “If it brings you any comfort, Captain, I would say that by the way the conflict is currently developing, it is much more likely we end up in _Klingon_ captivity.”

Jim smiled. Dry Vulcan humor always managed to drag him from whatever low he was stuck in, and the prospect of imprisonment didn’t carry any threat at all.

 _I’d find you_ , Khan had said. Automatically, Jim directed his eyes to the window again. _Yeah, and I’m gonna find you, no matter what,_ he thought to himself. 

 

 

End of Part Two

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for sticking with me on that bumpy ride, NurseDarry! You were my bastion of calm when I was freaking out again, and my beta heroine when I craved it :D


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